What is an Air Keyboard and why do you need one for your living room? Well that’s what we thought when we first heard of it, but it does make sense as there’s been a massive trend recently of people hooking up their new HD TVs to their PCs. This has been largely due to the addition of HDMI outputs on new graphics cards and the new style mini PCs that are so compact they fit right alongside your DVD / Blu-Ray player and surround sound system.
The main problem with this kind of setup that we’ve come across at GFM HQ is that they become a lot more difficult to interact with. While you can opt for a wireless keyboard and mouse but they become a nightmare to balance on your knee and to use them properly you need your gran’s lap tray – not the coolest accessory to be seen with.
In steps the Air Keyboard. The most obvious thing about this high tech gadget is that it has a full QWERTY keyboard on its slender 14.2cm x 8.8cm face. Brilliant, a fully usable keyboard one quarter the size of the old one. Helpful but it doesn’t solve the mouse issues, right?
Well the Air Keyboard is not just a keyboard, but also motion controller. Thanks to an on-board accelerometer it also acts as a mouse. Simply tilt the device left, right, up or down to move the mouse arrow on screen, much like you would with a Nintendo Wii controller.
Once you have the mouse pointer in position simply click the left or right shoulder buttons (like on a mouse) to get the desired effect. If you don’t like using the accelerometer there is a D-Pad style button layout above the keyboard that you can use to navigate the mouse.
Next to this there is a number of quick keys like volume up and down, mute, play, pause, stop etc, making using the Air Keyboard that bit more user friendly. You don’t even have to sit ridiculously close for it work as it has a seriously impressive range of up to 50 metres. Why you would want to sit 50 meters away from your TV does boggle me though, but good to know it could work over long distances.
The Air Keyboard is Windows and Mac compatible as well as working with the PS3 and Linux systems. It takes 2xAA batteries to power the beast. But on a good note these two batteries will power your new hi-tech gadget friend for over 50 hours, and when they are running low you will be warned by a little LED light on the front of the unit.
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