Had Termux open on one phone and didn’t have a keyboard around, so ended up using another Android phone for input. Bottom phone → USB HID adapter → top phone.
Android just sees it as a normal hardware keyboard
Mostly been useful for a few commands when I’m around the rack. For quick stuff it’s nice having everything fold up together like this
Been playing around with this two-phone setup lately.
The top phone handles the remote desktop connection to my Mac, while the bottom one works as the keyboard and trackpad through a USB HID adapter. I clipped them together so everything stays in one compact setup.
The nicest part is not having to carry a separate keyboard or mouse. It’s basically a little folding workstation made from two phones I already had with me.
I mounted two Android phones together to experiment with a compact remote workstation.
The top phone runs the remote desktop session, while the bottom phone sends keyboard and touchpad input through a USB HID adapter. The receiving phone sees it as a standard hardware keyboard and mouse rather than a Bluetooth or network input device.
I walked over to the rack to run a couple of commands and realized there was no keyboard nearby.
One phone already had Termux open, and the other was in my pocket, so I clipped them together and connected them through a USB-C HID adapter.
The top phone became the terminal, while the bottom one handled the keyboard input. To the top phone, it just looks like a normal USB keyboard.
Build:
Two Android phones
Termux on the top phone
KeyCmd on the bottom phone
USB-C HID adapter
Foldable dual-phone mount
I only needed to run a few commands beside the rack, but there was no keyboard nearby and bringing over a laptop felt excessive.
So I opened Termux on one Android phone, used the other phone as the keyboard, and connected them through a USB-C HID adapter. The terminal phone recognized the second phone as a normal hardware keyboard. No Bluetooth keyboard pairing, and no special input software needed on the receiving phone.
Hey everyone! The uConsole KVM Ext. Module V2 boards have finally shipped! 📦
The first batch is now on the way, and we’re really excited to see them heading out to you.
Thanks so much to everyone who supported the original V1 and now V2. Your trust, patience, and feedback helped us get here.
The documentation site is still a bit behind, since we focused on getting the boards shipped first. We’ll keep adding guides, examples, and setup info as soon as we can.
Hope you receive yours soon. Please share your builds and feedback once they arrive!
Most rack-side maintenance only takes a few commands, so bringing over a laptop, keyboard, and monitor can feel like overkill.
This setup uses two Android phones. The upper phone runs Termux, while the lower phone provides the keyboard interface. Input passes through a small USB HID adapter, and the receiving phone recognizes it as a regular hardware keyboard.
I’ve been using it for quick tasks such as checking service status, reviewing logs, running commands, and making small configuration changes beside the equipment.
works best for short sessions where space is limited. The two phones fold together into a compact terminal-style setup and can sit directly on top of the server. For longer work, a laptop and full-size keyboard are still much more comfortable.
Been messing around with a tiny two-phone terminal setup.
Top phone runs Termux, bottom phone acts as the keyboard/control side, and KeyMod sends input as USB HID.
No Wi-Fi, no remote desktop, no extra app on the target side. It just sees keyboard input.
It’s definitely a bit cursed, but it works better than I expected. The bottom screen can also be swapped into custom controls, macros, touchpad, or shortcuts instead of just a keyboard.
Been messing around with a slightly weird setup on a Raspberry Pi. Instead of plugging in a keyboard, I just used my phone as the input device for terminal access. The Pi is running headless, and the phone is basically acting as the input layer for SSH/terminal interaction through a small USB bridge device. Nothing fancy, just experimenting with different ways to interact with a Pi without needing a full keyboard setup.
Setup
Raspberry Pi 5
Android phone
USB bridge device
Terminal app on phone
What it does
Phone input gets forwarded to the Pi. Terminal session runs on the Pi itself. Used for basic shell access and quick commands
Why I tried this
Mostly curiosity + trying to make quick access to a Pi a bit less annoying when I don’t have a keyboard nearby.
Observations so far
It actually works fine for basic stuff. Typing is obviously not great compared to a real keyboard, but usable for quick checks and commands.
Tried using my phone like a controller for Minecraft Java.
WASD, look, jump, sneak, attack, place and inventory are all on the phone. It’s still just keyboard/mouse input underneath, but it worked better than I expected lol
Hey everyone, We built a second-generation Openterface KVM extension module for uConsole, and it is now in pre-launch.
The first version was mainly a KVM extension board: HDMI input, USB HID keyboard/mouse control, and BIOS/UEFI-level access for headless machines.
With v2, we wanted to make the uConsole more useful as a small field ops terminal, not just a portable KVM screen.
What’s new in v2:
So compared with v1, this is no longer just a KVM board. It combines KVM, wired network debugging, SD read/write, and USB sharing in one slot-in module.
The main use cases we designed it for are:
The target machine does not need software installed. It still follows the same Openterface HID approach: plug in, open the Openterface app on uConsole, and control the target locally.
Pre-launch page: Openterface uConsole KVM Ext. Module V2
I tried playing Minecraft Java using my phone like a controller. It’s basically mobile controls on PC Minecraft. Movement, looking, jump, sneak, attack and place are all on the phone. I know keyboard + mouse players are gonna hate this lol, but mobile players might actually survive with it.
One of the more useful things we've added to KeyMod is Compose & Send.
Paste text on your phone, hit send, and it appears on the target machine as USB keyboard input over USB-C.
The demo here is a script being sent into a terminal, but it's also handy for passwords, Wi-Fi credentials, and other chunks of text that are annoying to type by hand.
We've been working on KeyMod, a small USB-C HID adapter that lets a phone act as a keyboard and mouse for another device.
The idea is simple:
Phone → KeyMod → Target Device
The target device sees standard USB HID keyboard and mouse input, so no additional software is required on the controlled machine.
Current functions include: Keyboard input, Touchpad control, Text and script sending, Presentation controls, App switching, and more features planned for future updates.
We've been testing it with laptops, mini PCs, Raspberry Pi systems, and other devices that normally require a keyboard and mouse.
One interesting thing we've found is that the same setup can be used for everything from terminal access to presentation control, all from the phone.
I'm part of the team building it and would love to hear what USB HID use cases people here would find useful.
One of those surprisingly common homelab problems:
You walk up to a random homelab machine and somehow end up needing to paste half a script into a terminal.
So instead of pecking it in line by line, I pasted the script on my phone and sent it directly as USB HID keyboard input.
The photos show a demo of sending a script from a phone into a Mac terminal, along with one of our latest KeyMod PCB prototypes. We're currently trying to make the hardware as ridiculously small as possible while still keeping it practical to use.
Curious to hear what the homelab crowd thinks.