I got COVID.
I'm better now, mostly.
But I was stranded in a hotel for two weeks with absolutely nothing to do but watch YouTube and stick cotton swabs up my nose.
At least, that's what I would say, if not for this.
This unassuming little box let me connect back to my test bench at the office and do actual work from the comfort of my hotel room.
I can do crazy things like use my smartphone over 5G to power on this completely ordinary computer without wake on land.
It's not even plugged into the network.
And it's not just power.
I can also see the screen interact not only with Windows but even the BIOS, as if I were sitting right in front of the computer.
That's right, I could even overclock this PC completely remotely.
How does it work?
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Meet Pi KVM v3.
It's an open source hat for Raspberry Pi that launched as a Kickstarter and started shipping about a year ago.
Let's try it on a laptop plugged in via Ethernet.
The delay actually isn't too bad, like the cursor is skipping around a little bit,
but as good as it kind of is with their claim of 100 milliseconds at best, like for a device like this, that's amazing.
That's before you consider your network latency.
You're not going to want to game on it at all.
Plus, 1080p60 is the absolute most you're going to get.
Now, if you're tight on bandwidth, you can actually limit the frame rate by yourself in the system menu here
and set the bit rate you'd like to use for H.264 encoding, which I can switch to right there.
Of course, none of this requires anything special from the host PC here because it's completely out of the loop.
All we have is HDMI and USB plugged into the motherboard here for control, and that's it.
With an inexpensive HDMI splitter, you'd never know it was there.
Oh, and that reminds me, the USB connection here, that's for more than just the keyboard and mouse.
You can use it as a network bridge. You could use it for a serial port, and even this one is really cool,
as a USB drive for connecting up disk images.
I could install an entire operating system without ever needing to physically touch this PC.
Just upload the ISO to PiKVM, choose the mode you want to use, click Connect, and you're done.
It can even download images from the internet if you've given an address.
For you family IT gurus out there, that means you could remotely diagnose and repair
just about any problem your less savvy relatives might have
without having to guide them through the scary outside-of-window stuff that they've never seen before.
I can't tell you how many times I've had to do that, especially as a Geek Squad guy,
like trying to talk to somebody with a phone who had no idea what anything was.
I didn't know who they were, and...
Yeah. Of course, that might bring up some privacy concerns,
so maybe you could have them leave it disconnected until they need you to make a house call.
You can always configure it with Tailscale VPN's free personal plan so you can access it as soon as it connects
without having to worry about networking shenanigans like static IP addresses or port forwarding.
But okay, we've seen what it can do. How does it work?
Inside this unassuming little box is a Raspberry Pi 4 and a specialized hat
that provides not only a USB connection and HDMI output, but also three total RJ45 network jacks.
The one on the Pi itself is to connect to your local network via Ethernet, as you'd expect,
and Wi-Fi is also available, though the steel chassis you have here is a little bad for signal strength.
But the other Ethernet ports on the hat are special.
The one directly above the Pis can connect to a serial port with a converter cable if, for example,
you wanted to be able to directly control the Pi KVM from the machine it's connected to
or communicate with a battery-backed UPS or other serial-controlled device.
The port on the other side...
This is meant for this optional breakout board, called the ATX adapter.
As you can probably tell by the lack of electronics on the adapter itself, it's not truly Ethernet,
but instead it's breaking up the wires in an Ethernet cable to directly hook up to the motherboard's
front panel connectors, so you've got your power, your reset, and the power in HDD LEDs.
This secondary board has two sets of pins.
One set goes to the front panel header itself, as you see here,
and the other goes to the cables from your case so you don't lose out on any functionality.
Depending on how neat you want it to be, there's enough length on these cables
that you can actually use a 3D printed PCI bracket to mount the ATX adapter directly inside your case.
Or you can just let it dangle and fish the Ethernet cable through a suitable opening like a PCI slot.
Though some VHB tape will probably go a long way to both insulating the bare contacts on this thing
and keeping it safely in place.
When all this is wired up, you've got a perfectly functional normal PC that can be controlled anywhere.
Or at least we're partway there.
If you bought the whole kit like this, then you're already good to go.
But if you just have your Pi in a hat, you'll need to do some setup first.
Flashing the memory card is a simple matter of downloading the image using our Pi Imager,
or your favorite imaging tool, inserting the SD card and hitting right.
Pop the SD card into the Pi, attach the hat if you haven't already, plug it into your network and power it up.
Once it's booted, you'll see, well, not much.
While you might be able to get away with connecting your web browser to PiKVM.local,
you'll probably have to find out what IP address the Pi KVM grabbed.
The easiest way to do that is if you've got the whole kit or picked up the OLED display, it'll save right on it.
But the next best thing is to take a look at your router's DHCP assignments.
If you don't have access to that, or you're not sure how, you can instead use this command to output a list of devices on your network.
Look for one with a MAC address containing these patterns and you'll find the IP address next to it.
Punch it into your browser and you're off to the races.
You'll definitely want to change these default admin passwords before you go any further, though.
And you can do that by going to the web terminal and entering these commands.
Now comes the real magic.
From the main menu, click on KVM and you'll be whisked away to a streamlined interface that might make IT admins think of IPMI,
which is fitting because that's basically what we got here.
If you click on the ATX menu here, you can see that you have power and reset buttons as if you were right next to the PC.
I can turn it off just like this.
And down it goes.
If you've connected everything right and you hit that button while it's all off, you'll see the boot sequence right in your web browser.
It's pretty cool.
But what did it cost?
If you don't care for fancy things like a case, but you also want everything all in one,
you can get just the custom hat for your Pi for 160 US buckaroonies.
But if you do want the whole package, you can get them preassembled like this with the case, cooler OLED display, 2GB Raspberry Pi 4,
and a 32GB pre-imagined SD card for an extra 90 bucks for a total of $250.
Is that a good price?
Kind of feels like it to me.
Commercial options from the big boys run between $500 and $1,000 US.
The only obvious comparison is the also open source TinyPilot Voyager 2,
a similar Pi-powered concept wrapped in a more polished commercial package with some extra features that sells for $360.
For the IT manager looking for something for their server racks,
the commercial TinyPilot claims to have a superior support system.
And while I haven't used either support system, I’d agree in principle.
Discord servers are great for building communities, but bad for searchability.
You can fight me on that.
The best part about all of this, though, if you're not shy about getting your hands dirty,
you can build your very own Pi KVM or TinyPilot.
And if you don't care about bells and whistles like Ethernet support or the ATX power control,
you can actually build it with a Raspberry Pi Zero 2W with no soldering for around $50.
Unfortunately, Raspberry Pis are still tough to find right now,
and the DIY route is significantly less polished than either of the other options, which are still available.
So, if you're not looking to DIY, the full Pi KVM package here,
for my money anyway, strikes an excellent middle ground.
It ticks nearly every box, just like our sponsor.
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Thanks for watching, guys.
This was a little bit different, but it is technically networking and server-related,
so maybe check out the last time we updated our server room,
or one of our servers, or maybe the million-dollar server.
There you go.
Go check that out.
The troubleshooting process was pretty fun.