Logitech MX5000 Cordless Desktop
January 30th, 2007
So I went out and got myself a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse today, as my shiny new MacBook Pro has Bluetooth and I want to use it in lid-closed mode at home. Plus, you know, it’s wireless.
I should point out that in my quest to find a wireless setup, I specifically wanted Bluetooth, as I didn’t want to have to use the USB dongle that comes with most (non-BT) wireless combos. Turns out Bluetooth isn’t as wide-spread as I hoped it would be and most setups use these proprietary wireless dongles. Anyhow, I found a very nice BT combo in the MX5000 Cordless Desktop, which comes with a MX1000 Laser mouse and MX5000 keyboard. The package also includes a USB BT dongle for people without built-in BT.
The MX1000 Laser mouse that comes in the combo is superb, and it was picked up by OS X immediately. Much, much nicer than using the built-in trackpad for extended periods of time, and certainly nicer than my several year old USB mouse I was using.
The MX5000 keyboard however, is a completely different story. The keyboard itself is very nice, and paired with OS X pretty much just as easily as the mouse did. That’s where the fun stopped though. Upon pairing with the device, OS X detected the new keyboard and tried to ascertain it’s layout by asking me to press the key directly to the right of the left-shift key. So I did. And nothing happened.
Hrm. So the alpha keys aren’t working - but the volume control, power button, etc, work. Ugh. Googling presented me with several blog posts and forum threads of people complaining that their new MX5000 wasn’t working, in exactly the same way as I have described. Gutted. Really should have looked that up before hand, but it’s Bluetooth, right? Thats why I avoided the combos with proprietary wireless dongles, cause they likely woulnd’t have Mac drivers.
So I take a look at the big “Read Me First” packaging insert and see that by default it’s paired with the included dongle and you have to install the (XP only) software first, before you can use it with built-in BT (It uses some “Secure Connect” thing to stop people snooping on your keypresses, which is odd, as BT already has encryption). OK, I grab my XP box thinking that I’ll unlock it after installing the drivers and I’ll be able to use it fine with my Mac. After an incredibly painful set of drivers and application installs, the keyboard worked with XP (It even replaced XP’s built-in BT stack). Unfortunately there was no obvious way to turn off the Secure Connect stuff. I assume that by replacing XP’s BT stack it implements it now anyway. I don’t have an XP box with built-in BT to see if it will connect straight away, so that’s out of the question.
I really don’t want to take this keyboard back (mainly cause I like the mouse so much and I can’t seem to find it separately), so I try plugging the BT dongle into my Mac and hey presto, the keyboard works. It doesn’t integrate with the Mac’s BT interfaces, I assume the dongle just presents a standard looking USB keyboard.
But that’s not cool - I’ve got built-in BT but my BT keyboard doesn’t work with it. I really don’t want to have to screw with this dongle thing every time I get home. I just want it to work…
So I remember looking through the developer tools included with OS X and seeing a BT packet sniffer. I unplug the BT dongle and unpair the mouse. Start sniffing, pair the keyboard with built-in BT, and start pressing some keys. I can see “HID Interrupts” being generated, and the keycodes they produce. It seems as though the keys are working and are producing consistent key-codes, but OS X doesn’t know how to interpret them. Interesting.
So, the next step is to figure out how to get OS X to remap those keycodes. I’ve spent a couple of hours trawling through the IOKit documentation (kernel API for developing drivers), the HID docs, the BT docs, etc, but nothing has stood out. It seems I’m looking at it from much too low - I shouldn’t need to write a driver for the damn thing!
I’m sure I’ve seen something in Linux that would let you sit on a terminal and view keycodes and their mappings as codes are generated. Something like that in OS X would be nice - I’m sure it exists, but I’m still pretty much an OS X n00b. Once that’s found and I can be sure that the keypresses are making their way up the stack (all I can see now are BT packets and HID interrupts caused by them), then a way to remap keycodes is needed. Easy!
*sigh* Of course, I could just take it back tomorrow and buy an Apple keyboard instead. Writing all this out has pissed me off so much that it’s pretty tempting. We’ll see what happens.
Entry Filed under: General
13 Comments Add your own
1. Luke | April 21st, 2007 at 4:53 am
Any luck yet? - I’m in the same situation, but without (almost) any programming experience…I can get some of the buttons on the mouse to work quite easily but nothing with the keyboard…but it worked at one point on our old Mac!
2. Luke | April 21st, 2007 at 4:54 am
OK fine so you took it back! - no worries…
3. Volker | July 21st, 2007 at 11:06 am
Hello Scott,
just found your site while looking for a bluetooth device. Also found this site: http://www.orderedbytes.com/. I don’t have any experience with it and programming, but maybe it helps you. If you find a way in remapping the MX5000 with it, please let (me) us know!
Thanks
Volker
4. Shakeeb | August 10th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
Hi Scott,
I’m assuming you returned the keyboard since the lack of an update, but just hoping that I’m wrong, were you able to figure this out?
I’m in the same boat after I got a work powerbook and well.. the MX5000 keyboard doesn’t exactly like it.
Shak
5. Nick | August 16th, 2007 at 10:59 am
I’m about as frustrated considering the combo was given to me. Nothing about Apple on Logittech’s site. Makes me want to fire an irate email to them.
My PowerBook G4 recognized the keyboard but nothing happens. I am waiting to recharge the mouse now. At the very least, I hope the mouse works.
Sheesh…
6. Scott | August 16th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
Hi all,
Yeah I returned the keyboard and mouse combo to the retailer after getting frustrated with it. I needed something that worked and didn’t have the time to muck around with it.
Cheers
7. supun | August 26th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
I did the same thing. I thought it would “just work” with the Mac since it was bluetooth, but was wrong.
However, it worked instantly with Linux, which I was amazed with. Didn’t even have to pair it. Just plugged the dongle in and started typing. Still have to map the special keys though.
8. Kevin | August 26th, 2007 at 11:40 pm
Prob not something you guys want to hear, but it will work straight away using the logitech dongle, though in a ‘fake’ bluetooth mode - you won’t see it in your bluetooth devices. Its this fake BT mode that lets windows users use the KB and Mouse while setting up their computers. Not an ideal solution, but it doesn’t hurt.
9. cde | September 1st, 2007 at 8:49 pm
Actually, the dongle is both a usb emulator and a standard bluetooth dongle. If you hold the connect button on it before plugging it in, and then let it go after it is plugged in, it will report to OSX as a generic bluetooth device. And then the keyboard has the same problems as the onboard bluetooth adaptor.
10. Peter | September 21st, 2007 at 5:04 am
Maybe you guys haven’t noticed (I don’t know too many people who require 30 feet of wireless mouse range), but the USB key adds VASTLY to the range of the mouse. I tried it with built-in bluetooth, and it was about 18 inches.
Also, some of the special features work on the mx5000 keyboard with OSX (using the USB key): volume, mute (sometimes), Play (but not stop or any other of the media buttons), Insert (it brings up the help menu), Pause/Break (it turns up the brightness), and Clear Calc works as a backspace key. F12 works as an eject key when I hold it down for longer than a minuscule amount of a second. Otherwise, it works normally as F12.
Oddly enough, when I use the 10-key it sometimes deletes a hard return and then types the number/symbol.
So basically I can type remotely with this keyboard and do everything with it I can do with my Apple BT keyboard.
11. Austin | October 20th, 2007 at 1:50 am
I was able to get the mx5000 mouse and keyboard working with my MacBook. The mouse connected with no problems, but I had to do a strange fix to get the keyboard working. I installed the Apple Keyboard Update (Version 1.2) and then I was able to set up my keyboard. A number of the advanced features work, including the volume and media controls. I haven’t spent the time to figure out how many of the other features work, but I’ve been using it without any problems. Hope that helps.
12. david | November 27th, 2007 at 8:06 am
well
i was also able to connect the keyboard to my macbook. i’m working with leopard and i just had to connect the keyboard to the OS. well okay the special keys don’t work - but the volume, play/pause… work. on my windows computer i never used the other keys and perhaps logitech will release an update for their mac software
13. V | May 5th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Yep, Leopard and this keyboard work fine together, and me both this in august and let it sit for 10 months and now here i am in awe!
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