Long Range Wireless Mouse and Keyboard

[Loanhighknight]

This is NOT for gaming. It needs to be useable in a professional environment.

Here's the deal: I have a conference room with a 20' long table in it. Off to one side of the room, I have a small form-factor PC (the "monitor" for which is a ceiling-mounted projector that we use for running slideshows, videos, etc.). The trouble we're having is that this keyboard works, but even though the set is said to be fine at 33', the mouse becomes unusably laggy if you aren't sitting at the seat at the table which is the very closest one to the computer which, incidentally, is the furthest seat from the projector: this means you have to make a choice between being unable to use the mouse, or not being able to see what your mouse is doing.

We need a wireless keyboard and mouse with a better range. I considered running some USB extender up into the ceiling so the dongle would be more centered above the table, but at that distance, and running around a bunch of Cat-5 cables and electrical wiring, I think USB would start to lose fidelity. I considered a USB-over-Cat5e extender, but I'd prefer to do this wirelessly if possible. So I'm back to needing a longer range keyboard and mouse. Anyone have any ideas?

 

[P1nnacle]

You aren't going to find a mouse/keyboard that has more than a 30' range, that's a limitation of bluetooth. What do you mean by "laggy"?

 

[Loanhighknight]

You aren't going to find a mouse/keyboard that has more than a 30' range, that's a limitation of bluetooth. What do you mean by "laggy"?

Blast.

When you're too far away from the dongle, it begins to act like any wireless mouse when its battery is dying: the mouse stutters across the screen and is difficult to control. Take the same mouse and move it to the end of the table that is closest to the PC, and it behaves beautifully though.

 

[P1nnacle]

Hmm. I would recommend getting a usb extension, you can extend up to 16.4 ft before you run into signal degradation.

 

[Loanhighknight]

That's my plan, but 16' won't cut it -- it's 10' just to get to our ceiling. I'm going to go with this one, since it has that repeater in the middle to pick up signal loss, and hope for the best.

 

[llopez55]

We typically extend USB with either a Gefen USB 2.0 Extender ( http://www.gefen.com/kvm/ext-usb2.0-lr.jsp?prod_id=5529) or Extron USB Extender Plus ( http://www.extron.com/product/product.aspx?id=usbextenderplus&subtype=385&s=4). That requires a cable (CAT6a-Shielded) pathway to the middle of the table. This Gefen unit has been around a couple of years and has two USB ports at the table end. We use one port for USB hub and other for USB MIC/Speaker for software video conferencing, like Vidyo. The additional ports on USB hub can be used for the keyboard/mouse, like Logitech K750 combo, where you can combine both on one USB port. The keyboard never needs batteries, its solar. You also have ports for USB thumb drives in case users want to simply put their presentation on your local PC. Hope this helps others, as the question was posed a long time ago.