My mouse felt laggy under the KVM because of the high polling rate it wanted to use. Some key combinations also got added delay because of the way the KVM listened to shortcuts.
Instead of the $200 KVM a $20 alternative with a dedicated switching button did what I wanted in a much better way. Maybe if you need to switch back and forth more often a KVM would be alright? But at that point I guess dedicated monitors with the USB switch would still be better.
The idea is basically "Synergy's convenience, but with real hardware switching." You run a tiny client on each machine. When your cursor hits the left edge of your desktop, Fence tells a USB and HDMI Switch to physically redirect your keyboard and mouse to the next PC.
The switching happens in hardware and you can design your layout per-direction and per-device.
Where the L1T KVM is the "one box handles video and IO beautifully" approach, Fence is more of an "IO routing layer" that lets you keep your existing monitors and their auto-input-switching (or a separate video path).
I built it specifically to be cross-platform. You don't pass clicks/keystrokes over the network, just a "switch to pc2 PC, left edge" message.
Not a replacement for the L1T if you want one-button video+peripheral switching, but if someone likes their monitor's own input handling and just wants the "mouse to edge" workflow it's a nice middle ground.
I like the fact that moving the mouse to different edges of the screen can show exactly the source to the sink that I want.
I originally built it for live streaming with OBS, but now, I miss it when I have more than one computer I need to deal with at a time.
I use mechanical USB switches to individually switch USB lines like this:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01I0Y3GEE
one for keyboard, one for mouse
Problems it avoids
- cable speed usb
- no extra latency
- using boot-up hold-key-down sequences on macos works fine
- keyboard doesn't get hung in weird states
- no hotkey conflicts
- no mouse gets in weird state on one system that persists to another
etc etc etc
One was connected to my keyboard and (up to) 4 machines.
The other was connected to my mouse and (up to) 4 machines.
for each machine, I need 2 cables from 2 usb ports on the machine to the switches (one for keyboard, one for mouse)
there no multiplexing, there is no hub, there is just a dedicated cable for each device. It works well though it is a little clunky to throw the mechanical switches.
I don't use the usb ports on the monitor.
They were both $20. The keyboard one works fine. I’d love to have a kvm like this but the price certainly gets gives me pause when I got halfway there for basically $20-$40.