Right now, I’m typing on a nice old rugged Dell keyboard. It’s pretty noisy, which is why my husband suggested I get a quieter keyboard, since my daughter complained. This keyboard is so old, it needs a USB adapter to work with the KVM switch. I like it.
But, I went to Best Buy and looked at keyboards. I think they were all wireless and expensive. The trouble with wireless keyboards is that they all require batteries. That seems really silly to me, because let’s face it, a keyboard doesn’t move. Even if you use it with a laptop, it just isn’t that much trouble to connect a cable to the laptop or tablet or whatever.
After admiring all the keyboards, I picked one with solar panels. The solar panels recharge the battery, so you should never need to buy a new one. Also, the solar panel keyboard was a little less expensive.
I brought it home and hooked it. It works great and is much quieter.
However, yesterday, I noticed a little red light flashing next to a :( face. I’m guessing the battery is low, but I really don’t want to figure out the problem. I put the keyboard on a windowsill so it can sunbathe. Maybe a bit of a rest will help it recover.
Solar powered wireless keyboards would probably work really well on a beach. Mine does not get enough light in my workspace, which is right in front of a window, to power itself or charge itself or whatever the solar panels do. Maybe they’re just decorative, which would be fine, since as far as I can tell, they don’t accomplish anything.
That’s why I’m using this noisy keyboard. I sure hope the fancy one recovers, otherwise, I’m going to have to replace the battery.
The reason I care about batteries is that in this case, they’re really unnecessary. Keyboards don’t need to move, and on the rare occasions when they do, you can use a longer cable. Why purchase, use (and discard) batteries if you don’t have to? It fails all the reduce, reuse, and recycle tests.