I’ve got a nice Home Theatre PC hooked up to my new TV, and now I want to try some gaming from the couch. It’s a lot trickier than you’d think.

First, let’s get it out of the way: I love my HTPC, but the wireless keyboard and mouse that came with it have a range of about 2 feet. If you like to sit with your nose against the screen, they’re great.

Furthermore, if you’re gaming, you want a decent mouse. Logitech makes a wireless gaming mouse, which looks fantastic– I’ve been using their gaming mice for years and never been disappointed.

As far as I can tell, Logitech does not make a companion keyboard. In fact, there are very few wireless keyboards, and most of them are “made for HTPCs”. This means they include trackballs and such, and have really poor key layouts because you’re not supposed to be doing much typing on them. Assuming I do find a decent wireless keyboard, it’ll be running on another dongle.

On top of all that, I don’t really want to pull out my gaming mouse and keyboard when I just want to play an mp3. I’ve been looking at the Gyration Media Center Universal Remote. It’s a universal remote that also works as an in-air pointing/mousing device: super cool. It’s supposed to have a really great range. So there’s dongle number 3. I think that’s how many USB ports the PC has, so I’m almost to the point of a USB hub– not to mention possible interference from three separate wireless devices on one computer.

Assuming I get all this worked out, what about the ergonomics of mousing on the couch? I’ve found that my current mouse (a Logitech gaming mouse) actually works quite well directly on the couch. Other mice get a little scratchy on it, though, so I might need a mouse pad. Also, while a laptop sits quite nicely in your lap, a wireless keyboard can bounce around a little while you type. That might be okay for watching media, but it’s not great when you mean to target a boss in WoW, and instead end up shooting at him– killing off your whole raid. There are some semi-clunky looking lapboards, which I think are for laptops. I may have to get one to try it out.

Judging from my search results, not many other people are interested in this. (And to be fair, it’s probably better just to game on your desktop.) If I do end up working out a solution, though, I’ll be sure to post the results for the couple other people who, like me, just can’t help themselves.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 30th, 2008 at 9:47 pm and is filed under Game Discussion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.