Looking for a Bluetooth keyboard for my Pi 3B

[ab1jx]

Ideally I'd like to hook a Pi 3B (my 3rd one) to a big screen TV and be able to sit with a keyboard and touch pad or trackball in my lap. If I'm really lucky it would work with phones and Kindles too. But BLE clouds the issue, my phone doesn't see my Pi. I don't do much with Bluetooth now, it's more a novelty.

As I recall some devices can do BLE plus the older style Bluetooth and some can't, I'm not sure which devices do which.

And I'm not sure a Pi 3 can be configured to use that keyboard and touchpad plus WiFi at the same time.

Anybody have any keyboards they can recommend?

[richrarobi]

I have a Logitech K380 which I bought recently (compact to fit in a carry-on) - so far it looks very good. It has three buttons that let you select which of three systems you connect to. Also it supports Linux and Android (probably those other OS's too?!) - You can switch between the systems in a single session....£28.00 if I remember correctly.

[Douglas6]

Avoid a BLE keyboard which likely won't work on the Pi currently.

[ab1jx]

I should have mentioned I was looking for a fullsize keyboard, or at least something I can type normally on. I bought what I thought was one, the iPazzport below

xt1505bt.gif (6.13 KiB) Viewed 4321 times

and it's only about 7 inches wide. OK for gaming or controlling a TV maybe but not useful for typing on. Not worth the hassle of trying to ship it back but it's about useless.

This is what my Motorola XT1505 phone is seeing. The Fire is a Kindle Fire 10HD from about a year ago. I don't know if the phone is doing both BLE and regular bluetooth or not, it's about 2 years old. I haven't devoted much time to getting the Pi (it's actually a Pi model 3B, pi2 is the hostname) paired with the phone.

It is recognizing that the iPazzport is a input device and it wants to use the Fire for contact sharing. So there are 4 devices (counting the phone) that seem compatible. If I could replace the iPazzport with a fullsize keyboard with a touchpad or trackball I'll be set.

[EULERPI]

Hi,

I'm using a Kensington KP400 Bluetooth/USB switchable keyboard with Raspberry PI 3Bs and Pi Zero W.

Its full size but doesn't have a touchpad.

I haven't had any problems using the Bluetooth Keyboard and Wifi at the same time - only with Bluetooth Audio out at the same time as Wifi (on the Pi 3B and Pi Zero W).

Regards

Nick

[ab1jx]

OK, I finally spent an hour or so and went to Logitech's page with wireless keyboards at http://www.logitech.com/en-us/keyboards ... ice-combos

By a Wikipedia page at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth_low_energy

Bluetooth Smart Ready indicates a dual-mode device compatible with both
Classic and low energy peripherals.[9]
Bluetooth Smart indicates a low energy-only device which requires either
a Smart Ready or another Smart device in order to function.

So "smart ready" is the best to have.

There are several Logitech Bluetooth keyboards, only the k830 also has a touchpad. I didn't consider anything that wasn't fullsize. Logitech also pushes something they call "unifying" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logitech_ ... g_receiver The k830 can do that, a cheaper keyboard with touchpad, the k400, does only that. There's some support for unifying in the Linux world. It may well be a protocol for keyboards/mice over WiFi, Logitech's adapter looks like a standard USB WiFi dongle.

The k830 is marketed as a "living room" keyboard and also has backlit keys and a built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery. Charging is over USB. List price is $99.99, street price by Froogle is about $45. http://www.logitech.com/en-us/product/l ... 30?crid=27 It only does BLE/Smart. In the manual at https://www.logitech.com/assets/50714/i ... -guide.pdf there's no real mention of Bluetooth but it does say you can use the keyboard to control some TVs. I'd make sure there was a good return policy I guess.

I also found this one on Aliexpress for ~$50 which has the unique feature of the touchpad doubling as a numeric keypad: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Keyboar ... .27.OTZtyB Only Bluetooth 3, not backlit.

[ab1jx]

My new hope is that one of these might work OK. It's not full size, about half. The USB cord is for charging it I assume, my iPazzzport came with one. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Factory ... sstype=600 It doesn't really say whether it's BLE or classic Bluetoooth. I haven't ordered one yet either. Only $14.37. I just wish they'd invest a little more plastic to make it big enough so you could touch-type on one.

[Ronaldlees]

The first Aerb bluetooth keyboards were great, and worked on a Pi2. They were about ten inches wide, but had only an inch or so less span than a full-sized keyboard within the main key section of the keyboard. There was no numeric keypad though. Unfortunately, I see they only carry the round gameboards now. A person might find one on Ebay though.