HDMI KVM SWITCH

Teleworking full-time due to the pandemic wasn't too shabby. My 32" Dell monitor [1] has dual HDMI inputs and built-in speakers [2] and I had it connected to both the Win10 Dell work laptop and the new Win10 Lenovo personal desktop. I keep the laptop open to use its screen also and the built-in keyboard plus a personal wireless trackball (small USB dongle); the desktop had a wired keyboard and mouse using the monitor as a hub. But switching was a pain. Going through the monitor settings via the tiny corner buttons was bad enough, but I also had to move the trackball dongle since I detest normal mice and only keep it for the missus. This switcher saved the day! When I first hooked it up, it didn't want to work at all. But after checking this Amazon product page and seeing the "hold button to reset" instruction, all of a sudden it worked PERFECTLY. Both computers are happily outputting to the monitor (or thinking they are) via the switcher, and both the monitor's USB hub and trackball USB dongle are feeding the computers in turn. One button really DOES switch everything with little delay. Also, with so much tech crammed into this corner of my home office [3], it's wonderful not having yet another wall-wart power brick around [4]. To be fair, here's the main drawback: the manual is gibberish. Time will tell if the device itself holds up, and I'm sure SOME folks have issues right off the bat, but it seems to be working fine for me. With the ease of this, it's going to be a hard sell to get me to go back to the office! Notes: [1] Yes, THIRTY-TWO INCHES. It self-reports as a "Digital Television", but I've tried using a cheap 32" TV as a monitor and the scaling was all off and the picture was fuzzy. This one looks great, even going through the switcher. [2] I do have separate speakers from decades gone by when computer audio had decent quality: Boston Acoustics, powered 2.1 system with hardware volume control. Thick, high-quality cables (and a fat power supply, but also auto-off). Great sound from any source. I don't mind moving the plug for that around as necessary; most often I run it from my phone, not the computers. [3] Let's see: two lamps, paper shredder, desk printing calculator, screwdriver charger, work laptop, work phone headset dock, speakers, desktop, 3 external hard drives (audio/video storage + backups), main monitor, extra monitor for the desktop to display a calendar and clock 24/7, Qi charging pad for phone, home gateway (DSL modem, Ethernet router, Wi-Fi hub), Vonage box, house phone charger, 61-key Casio keyboard, Canon printer/scanner/copier. (Did you count? That's 20 AC plugs more-or-less within arms' reach.) [4] Some folks say that "PC1" needs to be left on because "PC2" won't power the switcher alone. That's just fine--I made PC2 the work laptop that I shut down every night, and the desktop (PC1) stays on 24/7 doing Folding@Home to help bio-research. But wait... UPDATE: I wrote this review on Friday afternoon. On Sunday morning there were township-wide power issues and the desktop (PC1) powered off. I turned on the laptop (PC2) on Monday morning for work and the switcher came on with it -- sure, it defaulted to PC1, but one button push was all I needed; it remembered the video settings perfectly with no issues. So anyone who says PC1 HAS to be the power source is wrong (as long as PC2 is actually supplying power via USB; maybe that's their issue). I just can't find anything wrong with this HDMI/USB KVM switch!

I'm really pleased with the JideTech 2-Port USB HDMI Cable KVM Switch Video, Cables & USB Peripheral Sharing Support 4k×2K@30hz Resolution. Everything works perfectly. Graphics, wireless keyboard and mouse. The wireless headset works also. It only has 2 USB ports so I added a USB 3 hub that works. I'm also able to read files on both computers from a 32GB USB flash drive. An additional bonus. Now a little about me & how I'm using the switch. I bought myself a mini PC to work with during the winter months. I only have one 29 inch monitor & plugging and unplugging was a pain. This particular KVM switch had good reviews. The electric comes from a USB connection, another positive. I contacted Amy at the support email and she got got back to me within 24 hours to answer my questions. Both desktop and mini PC are running windows 10 with on board graphics. I like a clean desktop. The 2 pictures show how I was doing my 1st testing & how it's out of sight & tidy today. The graphics is working fine on U-tube, browsers & word/excel. With the USB flash drive plugged into the switch, I'm able to load files from the desktop computer, switch over to the mini computer, and then transfer the files, to the mini without having to relocate the USB drive. This little switch packs a lot of features for the price. Plus it has a one year warranty. I'm not a very technical person so the fact that it's so easy to use, means I'm really pleased with the purchase.

The two port HDMI KVM switch from Jide Tech is inexpensive and does the job it was designed to do. This is a no frills manual KVM switch. It has 1x HDMI port for your monitor and 2x USB ports for a keyboard and a mouse. There are two cables to go to each computer with 1 HDMI plug and 1x USB plug. Switching between computers is accomplished with a wired remote button, so the actual port does not need to be within reach. Pros: Inexpensive Small foot print Remote switching Easy to install No loss of picture quality Cons: Switch button has stuck a few times preventing me from switching computers. No keyboard shortcut to switch computes. Switch always defaults to computer #1 even if it is off. If you turn on computer #2 you have to manually switch to it. All in all it’s a good little KVM switch. I’ve been using it since mid March 2020 when my employer sent us to work from home due to Covid-19. I have an older system and had to get DVI to HMDI adapters for to it. I would give it five stars but the lack of a keyboard shortcut to switch computers and the defaulting to computer #1 even when it computer #1 is off, cost it a star.

I was hoping to use this KVM with my new Ultrawide monitor. When I connected it, the resolution was wrong, and I could not get it to work. I returned the item under the assumption that it would not support the 2560x1080 screen resolution. JideTech reached out to me and asked to find out if the device was defective. I told them that it was not defective. It just did not work with my monitor resolution. They then asked if I would try a virtual monitor reset by holding the button down for over 5 seconds; the two LEDs on the KVM switch will be on, then off, then on again over 3 seconds. So they sent me a new KVM switch, and I followed the instruction they sent me; reset the virtual monitor, connected my computer, and it worked. Both my work Windows 10 computer and my Macbook pro detect the Ultrawide screen and display correctly. Thank you, Jidetech, for reaching out to me with the instructions on how to get this to work. Also, if you are worried about it having a blue button, both of the ones I had had a nice black button. --UPDATE-- Well, I am sad to say after approximately 7 months of use, the USB connection to my mac drops out and quits working (a lot). No idea if this is fixable, but it makes the unit very unusable.

UPDATE: The people at JideTech noticed that I'd returned this device and were kind enough to send me another one to test. I'm happy to report that it works perfectly and switches correctly 100% of the time. Mine was just a defective unit and the replacement works exactly as it should. The keyboard, video, and mouse all switch back and forth each time the control button button is pressed. Thank you, JideTech for caring enough to make this right! When my JideTech KVM Switch worked, it worked just as it should. But about 30% of the time when the switching button was pressed, nothing happened, everything just stayed as it was. The KVM switch itself seems to be made well and overall I'd say it's a good piece of gear for the money; mine was probably just a dud. Hooking it up was simple and the ports are clearly labeled. The cords are long enough that you shouldn't have any issues as long as your monitors aren't too far apart (more than about 5 or 6 feet). One thing to keep in mind is that this device doesn't switch the audio signal- there are no inputs for audio so keep that in mind (this won't be a concern for a lot of people). If you do need audio switching look at the IOGEAR GCS62HU. It's ~$20 more but will do the trick. But if you just need to switch the keyboard, mouse, and video, this JideTech KVM switch will work fine.

Update from 5 stars down to 3. For a guy who rarely writes reviews, I've spent quite a while on this one. I initially wrote to correct other reviewers who were saying it didn't support 1440p because they hadn't read the instructions. Then the switch went bad on me, I received a replacement that didn't work, then I fixed the original, so there's a whole rollercoaster on which to report. It randomly stopped toggling a couple weeks ago. It took some searching to find contact info for the company (don't bother trying through Amazon's circular links), but I wrote them and after a few days they wrote back. They offered to send me a new device, and it showed up quickly. The "new" device was obviously another customer return, and it didn't include the toggle switch, which it turns out was the part causing the trouble. Nice one, customer service. The toggle device is pretty basic. It's a push toggle button that shorts the ground and right speaker nodes of a 1/8" plug. And like most of the crap we buy from China because we're too cheap to pay for quality, they weren't too careful with their soldering. I wasn't really interested in resoldering the connections knowing that might not fix the problem, and had planned to request they send another toggle switch when I noticed a couple of the solder joints might be too close together. I cut a little solder away from between the joints and we were back in business. Anyway, now it's functioning again, this KVM still works better than some others I've used. Aside from this issue, it's quick and reliable. Obviously poor customer service to send a replacement missing a critical part, and the quality of the device itself is low. Hopefully this helps others who may need to debug. For those who haven't yet purchased, I guess it comes down to how much time you want to spend debugging a $30 KVM. ---------------- I just upgraded my monitor from a 1080p to a new 1440p. I couldn't initially set the resolution to 1440p, and determined the reason was the KVM (because 1440p worked fine when directly connected to gfx card). I also tried reducing the refresh rate to 30 Hz, since that's the spec'd refresh rate for the KVM. If the KVM really required this rate, it would be a deal breaker. Try reducing your refresh to 30 Hz and you'll see what I mean. Anyway, it didn't matter, I still couldn't set the display above 1080p. As I was getting ready to lay into the company about inaccurate claims, dishonored promises, the general state of global capitalism today, etc., I saw a note in the product description about holding the button down for 5 seconds at startup or whenever changing monitors. I did, everything went blank for a few seconds, and then as though it had been given life by the light touch of His Noodly Appendage, the monitor came back up in beautiful 1440p. My refresh rate is currently set to 75 Hz and working fine. Maybe the KVM is reducing the rate without telling Windows 10, but I don't notice any screen flicker. Hope this helps others who are frantically searching questions and reviews as to why this KVM switch doesn't live up to its spec'd resolution.

Easy to set up - although instructions are not written by a native English speaker, they get the point across. Does not require two computers to be plugged in / turned on in order to function, at least that I can tell so far. Takes a few seconds to swap the computers, but no real complaint about that. EDIT: Was a 5 star review (for above), but as of September 10th it has stopped working. Both blue lights are off and I can't seem to figure out why, even though it's plugged in in all the same locations as it was originally when I had it working. I can't figure out how to contact JideTech to see if I can fix it, so I'm hoping they'll be able to contact me. When it worked it was great, but now it is a useless box on my desk until I buy a new one or figure out a different solution. I bought a new computer monitor so that may have triggered something in the switch, because up to that point it was working perfectly. Will update if I have any resolutions. Edit2: Back to 5 stars. I read somewhere to disconnect all cords and reconnect and that did the trick. Back to normal!

I love the simplicity of this KVM switch so I can connect my laptop and desktop to the same monitor, keyboard and mouse. I have had no issues with the screen resolution. The box quickly recognized the best resolution for my Lenovo laptop and my Dell desktop. I didn't have to initialize the setting like other users had to. It's also small enough that I was able to tuck it away and only make the small push-button switch visible under the monitor. Unlike other KVMs, I like how this box already has all the necessary cables attached and they seem very high quality and long enough to reach all ports. When you click the button, it switches very quickly. My keyboard is wired and the mouse is wireless and I'm able to use both with each of the computers with this compact switch. I've been using it for about 2 weeks with no issues. I would definitely recommend for anyone tired of plugging/unplugging cables to switch between computers and one monitor.