USB receiver for wireless keyboard?

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pmam · Post by **pmam** » Mon May 14, 2018 7:31 pm

I found down the street this nice wireless keyboard: https://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Natura ... B000Q6UZBM
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q ... lmduKETa2i
Assume that it is working, however USB receiver is missing - According spec above it is 2.4G but do not know what exact receiver will be suitable,
and if it will work ok with linux? There is a standard for 2.4G receiver or there are many kind of specs?
If you know such receiver please attach ebay's link..

eccerr0r · Post by **eccerr0r** » Mon May 14, 2018 11:28 pm

There is no real standard. Likely you'll have to locate the same manufacturer receiver.

I avoid wireless keyboards and mice that are missing its corresponding receiver, finding the right receiver at the right price is difficult.

Incidentally I have two (actually, three, but these two are more or less identical-looking) Logitech mice with their corresponding USB dongle. I can't get the two to "cross breed" for whatever reason, they always seem to go to their corresponding USB stick.

However once you locate the right receiver, they and pretty much all USB HID keyboards and mice show up and work perfectly as HID standard USB devices.

Jaglover · Post by **Jaglover** » Tue May 15, 2018 12:44 am

These need to be paired. Imagine an office with tens of wireless keyboards and mice. If these were not paired it would be a nice mess.

eccerr0r · Post by **eccerr0r** » Tue May 15, 2018 3:50 am

I've had the battery out of these two mice for a while but they will never use the other receiver, nor does there seem to be a pairing button that's available on all of my other (older) wireless mice.

pmam · Post by **pmam** » Tue May 15, 2018 7:22 am

These need to be paired. Imagine an office with tens of wireless keyboards and mice. If these were not paired it would be a nice mess.

So it is due to the fact that this kind of receiver (2.4G) lack the *pairing feature* of bluetooth.
Can you please tell why not to prefer BT devices in general? Guess there are some disadvantages..

Also do not see any reason for buying such keyboard without the pair receiver like the following, unless you have the receiver:
https://www.ebay.ie/itm/Microsoft-Natur ... SwpoNambbJ

If wont find such pair receiver, maybe going to disassemble keyboard and try to *convert* it to wired..

Thanks

eccerr0r · Post by **eccerr0r** » Tue May 15, 2018 8:37 am

Bluetooth requires the bluetooth stack, pretty much that's the major drawback. However it means you can use any bluetooth receiver.

With proprietary wireless but standard HID you can plug and play, at least my later model logitech wireless mice are like that. The older model wireless mouse that I have requires pairing, though it does not require PC intervention.

Jaglover · Post by **Jaglover** » Tue May 15, 2018 8:41 am

Logitech has (Windows) software in their website to perform pairing if needed. Indeed, if you buy a Logitech mouse or keyboard it comes already paired.

Post by **NeddySeagoon** » Tue May 15, 2018 10:37 am

pmam,

At the USB end these things are more or less standard HID devices. The kernel has lots of different HID drivers to take care of the various vendor specific quirks.

At the keyboard end, they are all keyboards, mice or whatever.

Modern ones that operate in the 2.4GHz unlicenced mobile band are neither wifi nor bluetooth compliant.
They all do their own proprietary protocol while conforming to the UMB RF rules.
That means you need to have the right vendor specific receiver that understands the protocol and some way the pair the devices.

I suspect that the hardware is NFC or bluetooth, as there is no point in inventing yet another RF standard but the bluetooth/NFC will not be exposed in the USB dongle, it will be dealt with in the dongle firmware.

eccerr0r · Post by **eccerr0r** » Wed May 16, 2018 1:49 pm

Of the bluetooth keyboards I have, they also have a *very* slight latency between push and registration. Not sure if it's a problem with my keyboard or due to packetization of keypresses, but sometimes it's noticeable. Same with a bluetooth mouse.

Wireless keyboards and mice have existed prior to NFC standardization and I doubt they defined the standard. Different models and brands tend to run on different frequencies, I'll have to open up or get a spectrum analyzer and see what frequencies my keyboards run at.