Picking a Wireless Keyboard & Mouse

There are a large number of extremely short-range wireless keyboards and wireless mouse. You can even find wired keyboards with wireless mice — not just buying one of each, but as an integrated set.

The earliest wireless keyboards and mice worked with infrared transmitters and receivers, just like the television remote control in your family room.

These infrared units were extremely inefficient and even hard to handle, as they required proper alignment of the unit to the receiver to even function at all.

When I started looking for a wireless keyboard and wirelss mouse, I had a special requirement. As you can see from my Home Theater PC pages, my home theater PC is across the den from my chair. Phycically, the PC is sitting on top of my big-screen TV, while my chair is 15 feet across the room.

Therefore, my special requirement was that the wireless units had to be able to work reliably across that distance.

My first trip to the computer store was extremely disappointing. Almost every wireless keyboard and wireless mouse that they stocked, and those at the local office stores, had published ranges of 4 to 6 feet. In other words, they would not handle the distance I needed.

I also found an expensive Logitech unit that was priced at about $175, which was way, way more than I wanted to spend for a wireless keyboard and mouse.

After a good bit of Internet searching, I found exactly the wireless package that I needed.

The Versapoint Communicator set, from Interlink Electronics, included a radio-frequency wireless keyboard, radio-frequency wireless mouse, RF wireless clicker (for presentations) and a USB receiver to go into the computer. The published range was 30 feet — much better for my purposes! All of this for about $80.

The Interlink Communicator has been great. I've used it for almost 2 years and am just as happy with it as I ws initially. The mouse gets extensive use. The keyboard, less, since my SageTV home theater software can easily be driven with a mouse or an infrared remote control.

If you are looking for an excellent wireless keyboard and wireless mouse, take a look at the Versapoint Communicator.

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