Live data from Hacker News

JetKVM – Control any computer remotely

jetkvm.com

71–80 of 220 posts

Re: JetKVM – Control any computer remotely

#73
post #68
post #19

I've been really happy with my JetKVM. The tariff situation is unfortunate, my recollection is that it was something like $50 during the kickstarter (could be wrong, didn't check). Looking around a bit, I'm not sure I see anything remotely as hackable at a competitive price, so maybe $90 is still a great deal. It would be awesome if they made a PoE version.

> The tariff situation is unfortunate I wish there was a way of ordering from a non-US source so I didn't get hit. I'm not in the US, so it feels silly that I have to pay the American import tariffs on Chinese goods!

I believe the $90 is "mostly" without the tariffs - it appears to be the updated post-Kickstarter price (which was $70). The iKoolCore distributor says:

> US Tariff update: There are currently no additional tariffs, but this may change after November 1st. We’ll ship your order promptly to help minimize the risk of tariffs, though we can’t guarantee none will apply.

I am in the USA and the unit I ordered from iKoolCore is being shipped to me from China. I have no idea how much more I might have to pay in tariffs once it arrives to customs, or how I will even go about paying those tariffs.

Re: JetKVM – Control any computer remotely

#74
post #64
post #57

Please forgive my ignorance, but what advantage does this have over RDP/VNC?

A few things: 1/ the system doesn’t need to be connected to a network, or can be on a private/secured network. 2/ You can make changes to BIOS and other elements of the system that the OS can’t “see”. 3/ If the system is sleeping or shutdown, JetKVM can send a wake-on-LAN signal/magic packet. I’d say for many use cases, it’s not better than RDP/VNC, but if you’re looking access that is independent of the network and…

Ah, this use case makes the most sense to me - thank you kind stranger.

Re: JetKVM – Control any computer remotely

#75
I might be missing something, but what does this do that an app like AnyDesk doesn't? Is there something inherently better about remoting in with dedicated hardware rather than using any of the free and widely available software solutions? I can see where this would make sense for low powered machines that can't easily encode video at high speeds / low latency, but I struggle to see the sense of this in a context where I actually want video output (a powerful workstation) rather than just SSH.

Re: JetKVM – Control any computer remotely

#76
post #75

I might be missing something, but what does this do that an app like AnyDesk doesn't? Is there something inherently better about remoting in with dedicated hardware rather than using any of the free and widely available software solutions? I can see where this would make sense for low powered machines that can't easily encode video at high speeds / low latency, but I struggle to see the sense of this in a context whe…

it’s useful to be able to get into the bios for remote support situations of critical servers, I guess

Re: JetKVM – Control any computer remotely

#77
post #3

PiKVM seems to be the large competitor here and is completely open source. If you're looking into KVM solutions, probably check it out, but JetKVM is over 50% less, which is a huge argument in favor of it. https://pikvm.org

The JetKVM is very impressive looking at a great price. Until recently it wasn't really available in the US but it looks like it is now/ The V4 Mini is a very nice piece of hardware. I paid $300 for one in April from Amazon. I also got PiKVM running on a Pi Zero 2 W and it worked fine but was a bit squirrely. Having the purpose-built device is nice. You can also use a Pi Zero 2 W as a serial console: it has a USB On-…

They recently opened a global store. Previously, the only way to get one was to "buy" it on kickstarter, presumably from the US as well as the rest of the world.

Re: JetKVM – Control any computer remotely

#78
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's difficult for me to tell how many of the issues in that thread are serious, because there also seem to be a surprising number of people who come back to say "I solved it by enabling h264 in my browser". On the other hand there are people who say "I ordered three, two work and one doesn't" which seems like pretty good evidence there can be real issues with the hardware.

I ordered three and they all worked and then one died. Fortunately they replaced it, though.

this doesn’t seem ideal for a piece of hardware that may go in a remote location.

Re: JetKVM – Control any computer remotely

#79
post #20

I've been using it since I got it. It's been working great with one small issue that I haven't been able to solve. For some reason when I use plasma on Arch linux (but not ubuntu), the display outputs garbage. I'm guessing it's not detecting the EDID correctly and setting a weird resolution or refresh rate. It's not a major issue since other desktop work well so I haven't spent much time looking into it.

I get that too on a machine running Mint Cinnamon. It also happens from the BIOS screen, so I don't think its a Linux issue. A re-plug fixes it, but that's not great for a remote access device.

Re: JetKVM – Control any computer remotely

#80
Provenance and trust are relevant for a remote KVM.

But I can't find any information on their Web site about who runs the JetKVM company, not even a partial name or handle of anyone, nor even what country they are in. Which seems odd for how much this product needs to be trusted.

Searching elsewhere, other than the company Web site... Crunchbase for JetKVM shows 2 people, who it says are based in Berlin, and who also share a principal company, BuildJet, which Crunchbase says is based in Estonia. The product reportedly ships from Shenzhen. BuildJet apparently is a YC company, but BuildJet's Web site has very similar lack of info identifying anyone or their location, again despite the high level of trust required for this product.

Are corporate customers who are putting these products into positions of serious trust -- into their CI, and remote access to inside their infrastructure -- doing any kind of vetting? When the official Web sites have zero information about who this is, are the customers getting the information some other way, before purchasing and deploying?

If these people are still running the companies, why aren't they or anyone else mentioned on the company Web sites? That would be helpful first step for trust for corporate use. So its absence is odd.

Post reply on HN