Imagine my mood when, after spending about 4 hours fiddling with settings while trying to set this up with my HP TouchSmart IQ504, I called tech support at Rockfish only to find out that this keyboard won’t work with 64-bit machines.

NOWHERE….on the box, in the user guide, on Rocketfish.com or any other site I surfed while shopping for the perfect combo, was there any mention of this limitation. In fact, the tech support person (on the phone) said that is a frequent frustration for them, too, because this issue comes up often.

Potentially a good product, but ….. I’ll never know.

Despite the initial problem, I really do like the setup. I use it to move back and forth between my computer setup in the den and the home theater next to it that is connected to the same computer. Works really slick and I am able to use the keyboard and mouse in the other room from about 12 ft away without issue or delays.

Regarding the response delays, I have experienced the same thing. Whenever I sit down to type or use the mouse after a period of idle time (15 minutes or more maybe?), I have to wait about 3 seconds for it to relink or something. I’ve come to the habbit of sitting down, clicking the Esc-key and moving the mouse once then wait 3 seconds. After that it works flawlessly from then on until another period of idle time passes. It really hasn’t been an issue to me at all. I’ve also heard of this same behavior with many other bluetooth setups where it takes a few seconds to resync after a period of inactivity, but I’ve never had it display any response time issues once it successfully resynced.

Keyboard sleepmode would be less annoying if the first key pressed was recognized (e.g. Come back from coffee break to continue typing “Bass fishing…” skip the “B” what do you have left?) After keyboard starts responding, I don’t notice any lag, until it sleeps again.

I tried this keyboard/mouse setup using included bluetooth dongle, my own no name brand bluetooth dongle, and onboard bluetooth radio with included drivers and with generic drivers on three different computers running XPSP2, VistaSP1, and Windows 7 but could not overcome the following problem: I can’t even come close to using both devices at the same time. About the same amount of wake up time delay (about two seconds, plus skipped key) between which device you want to use. The only thing worse than standing still and shooting in a first person shooter game is standing still for two seconds before you can shoot because by then either you are dead or the target is gone. I would have given the mouse a higher rating if I didn’t have any problem using it at the same time as the keyboard.

Maybe I’m alone with a one-off mismatch keyboard/mouse combo. If not I’d like to read about this problem. Until then, I will be perfectly happy playing Unreal Tournament with my 20 year old IBM “click-key-board” and a three button ball-and-chain.

A) Unplug the dongle and uninstall the product software.
B) Restart the computer, plug the dongle in a USB port, and BEFORE windows load, e.g. you can go into the system BIOS or the boot menu (you obviously need a wired keyboard to do this unless you are using a laptop), do the following:
Press the connect button on the keyboard (you should see a light flashing) and then immediately press and hold the button on the dongle (until it starts flashing). The lights in both devices should stop flashing after a while and the devices should now be paired in HID mode.
C) Load windows. If your bluetooth dongle is auto-detected, do not install it. (If you do, the device will go back to HCI mode). Instead, press cancel. Then go to the device manager and disable the detected device (in my case it is named “Broadcom Ultimate Low Cost Bluetooth”). This will prevent the device from going back into HCI mode, it will stay in HID mode.

-The upside of this is that my keyboard no longer exhibits the aforementioned frustrating problems, and can also be used in the BIOS or in Linux.
-The downside is that (with HCI mode disabled) the bluetooth dongle can no longer be used to connect other devices (except the mouse and keyboard) in windows, and that media keys no longer work.

I bought the same keyboard/mouse/dongle combination that was listed here, and found the keyboard to be quite useable on my Mac, even though it’s not listed as a supported system. For laptop typing, though, it’s a bit on the large side, unless you have a very large lap. The sleep delay effect is common on BT devices, but doesn’t interfere with regular typing, only when you need to wake up the keyboard after several minutes of inactivity. Still, it would be nice to have a power switch on the keyboard, so you could turn it off when you aren’t using it, or when you are transporting it to another location.

The mouse, for me, was a total disappointment. Laser tracking, the tilt wheel, and media player controls are nice sounding features, but I never got to try them. My mouse turned out to be missing a more basic feature: the power switch. Unlike the keyboard, the mouse does have a switch, or at least, is supposed to. My unit was missing this critical component from the factory, and this is where the trouble began.

When I called the number for Rocketfish support, I told them about the problem, and they told me that their warranty was not valid because I had a defective product! So, what is the point of the warranty? Apparently it’s something they do so they can say they have one, but is about as useful as a snowflake in a sauna.

Thanks, Rocketfish, for a warranty that isn’t worth the ink used to print it on the paper it’s printed on.