Saturday, December 11, 2021

IdeaPost: convert usb keyboard mouse to bluetooth

Note:
This is an IDEA post not a standalone working solution.


I was planning to create an Android app which converts usb keyboard and mouse to bluetooth. This is an idea that can easily be created but there are various problems which make it inconsistent also. The idea is to plug usb keyboard and mouse into Android device using otg and then using a software to establish bluetooth connection with pc or other device. The software are already available on Playstore which can do something like this e.g. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.appground.blek

There are many other apps also. However these apps do not route keyboard and mouse events from usb. They make screen itself as a mouse and utilize input text field for keyboard events.

The solution is to make app which listens to hardware events and transfers them to PC etc. Android can use various services to intercept keyboard and mouse events. If anyone is interested i can make it but i don't think it (again) will help me financially like previous apps gone through. If you are a developer then do share me your app if you make one.

If you are a normal user who has found a working solution do share it in comments section i will update the blogpost. The solution of complex methods already exists!. Like using rooting of device, accessibility service for inputs etc. These apps are surely going to stop working in coming android updates :0.

Privacy/Security threat:
Any app which can listen to keyboard can also log all events and cause a privacy security threat. For  example if you are visiting a bank website and its obviously sure whatever your type after opening this website is your password, username etc. This is what loggers do. They save whatever you type. Due to this listening to input events is not allowed by any operating system. I hope this article gives some ideas and some possible problems while implementating the ideas.