Home theatre buffs with either a small gaming PC or HTPC know all too well the value of a decent keyboard, and Logitech is here to show you that old one of yours can now be updated for use in the dark.
Built for the people who love to control their computer in the darkest of environments, Logitech’s K830 keyboard is a new model that — shock horror — brings the light back to the darkened room by providing illuminating under the keys.
It’s similar technology to what we find in laptops with backlit keys, with a decent amount of light being emitted from under the keyboard itself to guide your way in the dark when you’re typing.
“More and more consumers want an easy way to access movies, TV programs, music and photos with their PC connected to a TV,” said Marcus Fry, Logitech’s Managing Director for the company in the Australia and New Zealand region.
“Our new illuminated living room keyboard K830 is designed with this setup in mind. Backlit keys and a premium aesthetic that blends into the living room make it a stand-out choice for people with connected TVs.”
Those of you with home theatre PCs, also known as “HTPCs,” will probably know this issue all too well, because nobody wants to have a light attached to their wireless keyboard while they’ve pulled the blinds and darkened the room when the projector is on. That can ruin the experience.
Rather, this option of bringing backlighting to a keyboard means you don’t need to switch the light on to see what you’re doing in the dark. Power isn’t as big a deal here, either, as the backlight switches off on the K830 five seconds after you stop typing to help conserve power, and charging is taken care of with the standard microUSB cable we’re all pretty reliant on these days.
A trackpad is also built into the unit, so you don’t need an extra mouse, with some gesture support provided for two fingers, while the keys on the keyboard can take up to five million keystrokes and even provide media hot keys for one-button controls.
Connection to the K830 is taken care of with one of Logitech’s 2.4GHz proprietary Unifying keys, which connects over USB to Windows 7 and Windows 8, though support for Mac OS is also possible just not confirmed.
Pricing for the K830 is set to $129.95, with an availability of May in electronics stores across Australia.
