Came across this ancient post on reddit and was wondering if anyone actually sells a dongle/device like this idea. I am deeply interested.
This is an ingenious idea but I’ve never seen something like this sold online. I guess you can make one out of an Arduino pretty easly.
I’d love to, but I don’t know how.
I’m willing to get started with Arduino, but I don’t know or where a good place to start would be.
I’m open for suggestions.
I have some high school Java programming experience as well if that helps.
You can program an Arduino (or compatible) to be read as an HID like a mouse or keyboard.
That little USB thing looks like it’s doing exactly that, the OP probably programmed some of the pins on the controller to register as keystrokes when on of the buttons are pressed.
EDIT: See below for an example of using an Arduino as a keyboard
To add to what w.meri said: programming an Arduino board is pretty easy, it uses a C-like language that’s pretty readable. So if I were you I would just spend the 15$ total required to build something like that and make it into a weekend project.
I’m trying to think where I would buy one of those with a USB on it though. Nothing comes to mind.
edit- Oh, nevermind. Looks like I found one.
I’m trying to figure out how I would implement bluetooth to this though.
If you think this is a weekend project, you’re crazy.
You found exactly an Arduino that’s been made into a tiny little board. I don’t think you’d need bluetooth on it. The point is making it like a cheap USB keypad to access the BIOS while you keep using a bluetooth keyboard for your every day work.
I’m sorry, I watched the project by my own eyes and since I’ve already messed around with sensors and buttons with the Raspberry Pi I thought this might’ve been a weekend project.
Faced a similar problem. Using a Keychron K2 bluetooth keyboard and wanted to have the bios boot menu show up so I could dual boot my Windows / Linux installations (dont like installing grub for handling both OSes).
Ended up using a single key programmable keyboard from Techkeys. Set it up as the F11 key.
You can set it up as the “delete” key or the key that gets you to your bios. With most UEFI bios nowdays you can use your mouse for most tasks.
I wrote a blog post about it. Let me know if you want. I can send you a link.
I kinda wanna see this done at Defcon or something
Owc sold a Bluetooth keyboard that came with a dongle that worked on PC as hid after pairing in a hackintosh somehow.
Logitech had a huuuuuuuge USB dongle back in the day that worked similarly . Iirc it came with a mouse/keyboard combo
For /u/im_int’s project they never intended or implemented bluetooth. All they did was made it appear as a keyboard with 4 buttons. Just what was needed to click through the BIOS options on the dongle itself. It was not intended to make your bluettoth board work in BIOS, just to be a mini keyboard to make BIOS useable with the little cliky buttons on the dongle.
Other World Computing?
Integrated something? (sorry)
Any idea on what the models were?
Looking into some college for Arduino or Arduino related classes.
Human Interface Device
Not sure about OWC tho.
Yep other world computing
The Bluetooth keyboard is so old it’s only bt2.1 so ehhhjh in terms of modern it ain’t
Man I hope so. Can’t wait to try and get into my neighbors BIOS with my skull-candy. Fun-times ahead.
I’d still like to investigate if you have it off hand by chance
Doesn’t look like the college offers Arduino courses or courses involving Arduino. :\ out of luck