Valentines Day Geekery

In our article, Valentine’s Day Gifts for the Loves in Your Life, we posted about four great phone accessories and a super cool facial cleaner.  Your kids, significant other, or you, would love these gifts.  But I wanted to share with you what I personally will be giving to my husband on Valentine’s Day.  As a mom tech, it’s hard for me to give him something that isn’t techy.  You see, there are so many solutions out there where technology comes in handy.

One of the things my husband loves to do is search for things on You Tube and Netflix.  He searches for singers, funny Saturday Night Live skits, Super Bowl commercials, funny scenes from movies, whatever comes to his mind at the moment.  In fact, he loves to do this when we have company over.  He likes to show relevant videos to the topic we are discussing.  The problem is, when you open YouTube, you have to use an archaic way of using your remote to type in the word(s) you are thinking of in the Search box.  It’s a real pain and it can totally derail your conversation while you hunt for the video you wanted to show.

I have been wanting to buy a keyless WiFi keyboard to help him with his searches for a long time, but I was nervous if you had to have a computer hooked up to your TV for it to work.  What if I bought the keyboard and found out this is the case?  I reasoned I could still use the keyboard, as our wireless keyboard gave out on one of our PC’s, so I decided to go for it.

At Walmart, I found several wireless WiFi keyboards.  I chose the Logitech WiFi keyboard because I am familiar with their brand and I know they make good products.  I chose to buy Logitech 400 keyboard with a built-in mouse for $29.88 .  And to sweeten the deal for my Valentine, I picked up a rich, masculine looking box of chocolates from Hershey’s Pot of Gold for him…(to share or course!)…too!

I brought it home and opened the box (no, not the chocolates!  the keyboard!).  I found the keyboard, a small Logitech USB receiver, and a USB receiver extension.  Looking at the picture on the box, you see someone sitting on the couch with the keyboard, but their laptop next to the TV.  The keyboard instructions talked about downloading software, but since I wasn’t planning to use it on a PC, I didn’t.  Luckily, you only need the software if you want to customize keys on the keyboard.  No worries, I didn’t need to do that.

WiFi Keyboard Moment of Truth

I anxiously plugged in the Logitech USB receiver into the back of our TV and turned on the TV.  I thought of the time I had to input our network security code into the TV to connect our smart TV to our network.  Boy, this WiFi keyboard would have made it so much easier.  But since it was already connected to our network, I went straight to our Samsung Smart Hub on the TV.  I tried using the mouse to get around, but it didn’t work.  I then opening Vudu, Netflix, and Pandora.  Although the arrow keys worked on the keyboard, the Enter key and all the other keys didn’t work.  Bummer.

Plan B

OK, no problem.  After all, my husband doesn’t usually use our Smart TV hub to connect to YouTube or Netflix.  He uses our Blue-ray player and even sometimes, he uses the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3.  So first I tried out the Blue-ray player.  I saw a message in the menu items that there was a USB device that it didn’t recognize.  Uh-oh.  But to my delight, the WiFi keyboard arrows worked great to scroll through the menu options.

I opened up Netflix and could use the keyboard’s arrow buttons to navigate.  Then the moment of truth, could I search for a movie?  I entered in “the princess” for The Princess Bride, on my keyboard and fortunately, my typing appeared on the screen.  Success!  Oddly enough though, they keyboard did not work for YouTube.

XBox 360

I placed the Logitech receiver in with the longer USB case that came in the Logitech packaging and inserted it into the XBox 360.  You need the longer USB casing because the XBox uses a self-closing flap over their front USB ports.  I plugged in the USB receiver and tried the WiFi keyboard with XBox and found that I could scroll well through the menu screens and easily search for game titles in the Games screen and movie titles in the Movies screen.  Success!

In fact, before I could even search, XBox wanted me to validate my profile, so they sent me a code on my cellphone and asked me to enter the code into XBox.  Using my keyboard, I easily typed it in and was on my way.  Slick.  The only area the keyboard didn’t work in was the Bing Search bar.  That would have been helpful, but the search seemed to only use voice commands rather than any typing.

PlayStation 3

Feeling confident from my XBox 360 test, I went straight for the PS3.  I put the receiver in the USB port on the PS3 and found the keyboard worked right away.

Yeah!  I could scroll around in the Playstation menu items easily and enter in text when searching for game titles, movies, etc.  The upcoming new game I have been most excited about is called Doki Doki Universe.  I wanted to check if it had come out yet and found I could easily search for the game using the keyboard.  I could also open up Netflix and type in movie titles in the Search box.  Score.

A Mom’s Perspective

Overall, I was super excited to find out that I could use the Logitech Keyboard for Netflix and for searching and controlling my XBox 360 and PlayStation 3.  It is so much easier to type in information and search for games and movies this way.  Having a keyboard handy where I can plug the USB receiver into whichever console I’m using to type is so convenient.  I could also easily use the Logitech keyboard for my All-in-One computer, which is nearby in the kitchen next to my Family Room.  I love the versatility of this keyboard.

I was disappointed to find out that the keyboard didn’t work with my smart TV.  I suppose the big TV makers have blocked access so we will need to buy their own branded keyboard instead.  I also found that the mouse section of the keyboard didn’t work with the TV’s or the consoles, but of course, it works great with my computer.  So, the Logitech 400 is not the end all solution, but it is handy and can be used easily on computers and gaming consoles.  The other way to go about this is to run a cable from your PC or laptop to the TV via USB, then you can use the app or URL on your computer to connect to YouTube and see everything on your TV after changing your  TV’s input to receive the signal.  You can than search YouTube very easily.

It just goes to show you, life (and technology) is like a box of chocolates.  You never know what you’re gonna get into you bite into it.  [Forrest Gump]  Are you curious about technology?  I encourage you to try things that interest you or intrigue you.  You never know what solutions are waiting to be solved just by buying a product and trying it.  WellConnectedMom will continue to research more of these types of solutions for you so you can see if a product is the right fit for you!

Happy Valentines Day!