I might buy one of these for remote family tech support. "Hey $relative, plug the remote support box into the USB port of the computer you're having trouble with so I can take a look"
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JetKVM Mini
171–180 of 245 posts
Re: JetKVM Mini
#172This looks excellent, I've been wanting cheap IP KVMs for a while for my workbench at the office and for my NAS server at home - at this price I'd get the three pack and still have a spare.
Re: JetKVM Mini
#173I'm baffled why so many of these KVM devices don't support PoE.
Re: JetKVM Mini
#174I have one of these that I purchased ~16 years ago:
https://github.com/Retrotink/PockeTerm-II
Very simple serial -> VGA device. Unfortunately no longer in production but the github project contains everything one would need ...
Re: JetKVM Mini
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was thinking the point was it was so light to have it hanging on the cables themselves, as I'm certain absolutely no one does in any of their installations...
But then why bother with having a display at all?
Just in case, and for people who actually do cable management...
Re: JetKVM Mini
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
i am not sure i would trust a two month old project "based on a three month old proof of concept" over a product that has been around for years, but it is good to know it is there
What to trust? Closed hardware/software that goes to trash if something goes wrong, or opensource that you can send an agent to debug if there are issues? I'm not trying to diminish JetKVM's product - for $35 its a steal if you don't want to bother with DIY and time involved, but I'd strongly disagree that opensource is less trustworthy than closed product.
I think the software aspects of JetKVM are open source? See: https://github.com/jetkvm
Also they say they are open sourcing the reference implementation of the "JetKVM OS Services" and the firmware of the "JetKVM Mini".
My point is more that it is way easier to make mistakes in source than it is to review said source in a project like this. So, to me, it is kind of risky to use something very green that is meant to be used as a network appliance more or less.
Re: JetKVM Mini
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://www.store.level1techs.com/products/kvm do some that might be suitable, they produce some of the highest end desktop-spec KVMs I know of. They're not cheap though.
Why are these so expensive?
cumulative development man-hour divided by total production number is why
Re: JetKVM Mini
#178What is the use case?
Re: JetKVM Mini
#179Not really related to this, but are there good non-IP KVM's left? I'm in the market for one so we can move two home office desks into 1, but all the ones I find seem kinda shit. Asking for USB-C + 2 hdmi or displayports is apparently unreasonable
I use a monitor for this.
Just hit a button the bottom and it swaps to the other input and I keep the keyboard / mouse plugged into the monitor and it goes where the input goes.
Re: JetKVM Mini
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
KVMs are for rebooting and recovering servers without needing physical access. Maybe you would have some chance with HDMI splitter connected with an EDID dummy plug and an HDMI-Ethernet capture encoder thing, and some dedicated KVM for just keyboard and mouse, but idk.
Honestly, this whole KVM thread is a bit confusing to me. I've always equated KVM with keyboard/video/mouse switches: enabling multiple computers to be controlled by the same I/O devices. Nowadays I just use a multi-source monitor and USB switch for that (can even automatically control the monitor via DCC, depending on the switch state, look it up on HN). And I usually refer to the "IP KVMs" as a "lights-out" module/…
The whole situation around low-end server KVMs are a bit unfortunate IMO. BIOS can theoretically work with UART just fine, and not even full VGA@24bpp should be an absolute necessity for just confirming BSoD to decide to power cycle the machine, so it should be theoretically possible to be cheapened out a lot more to be e.g. telnet only or up to 5fps QVGA through HDMI-Composite adapter, or it could even be like a servo pointing an antenna to switch between different dummy load terminated VGA cables relying on TEMPEST techniques to get frames, for more potential cost and reliability gains.
I expected that kind of potato IP-KVMs to surface from crypto mining space, but alas, what we got was this thing which predecessor have reputation of crashing. That might not be stupid, but a bit frustrating.