I've been a longtime HTPC user and have used the Gyration Air Music Remote for several years. The remote was finally starting to break down, so I was searching for a new alternative and tried the Gyration Air Mouse Elite, Cideko Wireless Air Keyboard, and finally found my perfect replacement in the Koolertron Air Fly Mouse & Keyboard.
First Things First:
I really liked my Gyration Air Music Remote, however, virtually ALL the buttons were essentially useless, save 3 critical buttons: the mouse Left, Right and Cursor-Float buttons -all 3 were laid out perfectly and easy to use with just my thumb. The ease with which I could wave the remote and move the cursor onscreen, coupled with the simplicity of the left, right and cursor-float buttons, made this remote invaluable to my HTPC experience. But, all the other buttons on the remote were essentially useless, and the LCD screen was much too small to serve any real function. Also, the remote was sorely lacking a scroll wheel which made surfing the web tedious and cumbersome. But there weren't any better alternatives, so I was happy to keep using my Air Music Remote until the right-click button broke, and I needed to find a replacement.
The Contenders:
Gyration Air Mouse Elite: At first I thought I would just buy a new Air Music Remote, but they've been discontinued; likely because the remote only had 3 useful buttons on it. So naturally, I decided to check out Gyration's latest iteration of their Air remotes. I tried the Gyration Air Mouse Elite for a solid month, but it just didn't work right. Gyration took 2 steps forward, 3 steps back on that one. I really wanted to like it, because I thought the onscreen keyboard and gesture commands to be a really nifty idea. Only problem was, nothing else on the remote worked properly, especially the all important cursor-float button. The cursor-float button was positioned underneath the remote, like a trigger. Not a bad idea, if only it would function properly. All too often, I'd have to click the trigger repeatedly, just to get it to register. Like the Air Music Remote, if you click and hold the cursor-float button, you can move the cursor around the screen, and then just let go to stop. If you want a free-flow cursor, just click the cursor-float button twice, and you can wave the cursor around the screen freely, without having to hold down the button. This is a crucial feature of any air mouse, and the Gyration Air Mouse Elite failed miserably in this regard. Single clicks were often registered as double, and I'd literally have to pull the trigger on the cursor-float button dozens of times to get it to disengage. With all due respect, it was like Katherine Hepburn trying to use that remote; the cursor would jitter wildly around the screen, and was a constant nuisance. The remote itself was designed as a table top mouse first, and a hand-held remote second. It's almost as if Gyration completely abandoned their revolutionary air mouse and it was more of an afterthought in this design. As a mouse, the Elite worked fine on a desk top, however, ergonomically it functioned horribly when hand-held. It was uncomfortable to hold, and unnatural to reach any of the buttons that needed to be used in conjunction. After using it for just over a month, Amazon agreed to issue me a refund, even though I was just outside of their return policy. Thank You, Amazon! What a relief it was to finally get rid of that piece of junk.
Cideko Wireless Air Keyboard: This was my next contender, but the remote has one critical flaw -the cursor-float button requires 2 hands to operate, making it needlessly tedious. I liked the idea of having a small keyboard right on the remote, but the cursor-float button is one that gets used a lot. So the poor design made me quickly reject this contender.
*Fanfare* ...Ta-Dah!
Enter The Koolertron Air Fly Mouse & Keyboard:
The first thing I noticed about the Koolertron Air Fly Mouse, is it had the exact same mouse left/right and cursor-float buttons as my old Gyration Air Music Remote. The next striking feature, was that it also doubled as a hand-held keyboard. And on top of that, it was half the price of that terrible Gyration Elite! I found a video for the Koolertron remote on YouTube, was instantly sold, and ordered off Amazon right away. When the remote arrived, I was very pleased that it functioned much like my old Air Music Remote, only this iteration had the benefit of a full keyboard as well. I instantly took to the remote, and it's been working perfectly for me right out of the box. Gyration could learn a thing or two about air remotes from Koolertron. This remote is comfortable in the hand, easy to use with just my thumbs, whether I'm just using the mouse buttons, or if I turn it sideways, and start typing with the keyboard. Gold Stars all the way around!
Who Needs A Scroll Wheel?
About the only thing I really liked on the Gyration Elite was the scroll wheel. It made surfing the web much more convenient when scrolling down long pages. However, like any scroll wheel, it was lacking in precision, and I often found it scrolling either too much or too little, and changing the settings in the Control Panel did little to help. On the flipside, Koolertron doesn't have a scroll wheel, which concerned me at first. But I soon learned that it has something waaaay better: Page Up and Page Down buttons, and also 4 arrow buttons. !! These buttons are far superior than any pesky scroll wheel. When I'm using my laptop, my mouse's scroll wheel gets a lot of use, however, when you're talking HTPC, Page Up/Down and Arrow buttons are far superior and faster to use. I can scroll down documents and web pages with speed and precision, like never before. Hold down any of those buttons, and it moves through pages at lightning speed. It's much easier than moving the cursor to the scroll bar, and then double-clicking the cursor-float button to drag the scroll bar up and down. This would be the advantage of Koolertron having a full keyboard on their remote.
Function & Media Keys:
The Gyration Elite had 4 buttons on the center of the mouse, 3 of which could be custom programmed; this would have been useful, if the rest of the mouse wasn't so tragic. By contrast, the Koolertron has a full keyboard with all 12 function keys across the top, and most of them double as media keys for email, music control, mute and volume control. Using the keyboard is a lot like typing a text message on your SmartPhone. The keys are soft to the touch, yet responsive and easy to use. I get NO skipped letters at all while typing, which even my full size wireless keyboard can't boast. It does take a bit of getting used to, because the keyboard is split in the center, where the mouse keys are. But I've taken to it quite quickly; and know that it will be indispensable.
Wireless Range:
The Koolertron has flawless wireless connectivity; I get no drop-outs or signal interruptions of any kind. And the USB transmitter is very tiny; you could easily plug it in to a laptop and just leave it there, even during transport, because it is so small. Perfect! On the flipside, the Gyration Elite, which costs twice as much, had constant signal interruptions, compounding the remote's already cumbersome operation; abysmal by comparison to Koolertron.
No Frills Packaging:
Clearly Koolertron came direct from China, which is fine with me. The packaging is more like Amazon's Frustration Free; just a plain box with the remote inside. It does come with batteries, which is a huge bonus, that a lot of companies have decided to scrimp on. The instructions are just a one page photocopy, but then there's really nothing complicated about using this remote. The USB transmitter is smartly housed inside the battery compartment, where it can easily be removed and plugged into your computer, or stored for travel. The Gyration Elite was rechargeable, and held a charge for about a week. However, it was a little quirky sometimes when placing it on the charging stand, and didn't always kick in and start charging without being coaxed.
No-Brainer Set-up:
For Koolertron, just plug in the USB transmitter and the drivers install automatically, and you're good to go. For Gyration Elite, you also needed to install their software, so that you could program the gesture functions; it was a nice gimmick that rarely worked properly.
Good Construction:
I've read other reviews that have complained about the "cheap plastic feel" used on the Koolertron remote. Personally that has not been my experience. The remote has a high gloss black finish, that looks like glossy airbrushed paint. Thankfully, there's no industrial smells associated with that. Maybe Koolertron took the other reviews to heart, and refinished the plastic housing for this remote. To me, it feels great in the hand, well balanced and comfortable to hold and use. The keys are cushiony rubber that feel good to the touch, and the remote does not feel cheap to me at all. By contrast, the Gyration Elite felt cumbersome in the hand, because it was designed as a desktop remote first, and it seems how it functioned while held in the hand was something Gyration didn't even bother to consider.
Shipping:
For some reason, there's been some talk about the Koolertron remote taking 4-6 weeks to ship. Mine shipped direct from Amazon, with the same delivery time as any of their products.
Bottom Line:
Sure, the Gyration Elite had a more polished presentation, but what good is that, if it doesn't work right? Form definitely didn't follow function. By contrast, Koolertron may not have all the slick packaging frills, but guess what? It works flawlessly. I love my Koolertron remote so much, I almost want to buy a second one, so I'm never without it. But I fully expect it to last me many years. And I'm quite happy that I found such a great alternative to my old Gyration Air Music Remote. Take notice, Gyration, Koolertron has kicked your butt with their Air Fly Mouse/Keyboard!
This is truly an exceptional product.
I had been looking at how to stick it to the cable company for some time by hooking my computer to my TV but encountered the inconvenience of having to get up all the time or have a wireless mouse & keyboard sitting on the coffee table. I searched high and low and low and behold I found this product. I was skeptical at 1st because there were no reviews anywhere for this product but it was just what I was looking for so I gave it a chance.
I was not disappointed. This thing works just as described and because it uses motion sense tech instead of reading positioning like a WII remote it's not as sensitive and jerky. It looks great and with windows 7 it was completely plug and play. Looks just like a remote. It does take some getting used to but I was off and running in no time. Highly recommend this product.
Buy Koolertron 2.4GHz Mini Wireless Air Fly Mouse/Keyboard Now
I bought this because it had some rave reviews and there is certainly a lot of potential with this device. You press on a button and the mouse pointer becomes active. As you move the remote like a pointer the mouse pointer moves with it. Once you let up on the button the mouse pointer freezes. So far so go. What hurts this device is the feel and sensitivity of the plastic and the buttons. The keyboard routinely misses key presses. Since I can't touch type on such a small device, I have to constantly look at the screen to see if the button press took and back at the keyboard to find the next key. Awkkkk Ward! Don't even bring up the concept of clicking and dragging on something to highlight or drag and drop...practically impossible.
I use this mini-keyboard remote for my HTPC and at the barest level it works...but the cost is too high for the feel and frankly I don't think it would hold up to much use. We'll see.
Pros: super easy to set up. Novel pointing mechanism for wireless mouse. Full QWERTY keyboard.
Cons: super cheap feel in your hand, poor quality buttons that often don't register, too expensive for functionality.
Read Best Reviews of Koolertron 2.4GHz Mini Wireless Air Fly Mouse/Keyboard Here
I picked this up for my HTPC. I've been using a wireless keyboard and mouse combo for awhile and they've become too cumbersome to have around. I ran across quite a few keyboard/mouse combo wireless devices here on Amazon but this one caught my eye. The mouse functionality is very responsive and works great. You simply point it ahead and either hold down the "mouse button" or double-click it to keep the mouse active and then you swing it around like a Wii remote. It has both left and right mouse buttons right where your thumb rests. Precision seems quite fine without fiddling with anything on Windows 7. The keyboard seems just fine and also responsive. Overall seems like a great deal.
Bottom line, if you are looking at similar devices, try this one first. No problems with annoying trackpads or mouse-balls. Just point and click.
Edit: I took a look at the specs on the Amazon page for this product and want to add my info. It does come with AAA batteries. It also comes with a very tiny USB receiver. Install was a simple matter of putting in the batteries, plugging in the USB receiver and it fired right up. Also ignore the shipping times as long as you order it as fulfilled by Amazon (the free shipping or prime option) it comes straight from Amazon.
Want Koolertron 2.4GHz Mini Wireless Air Fly Mouse/Keyboard Discount?
The mouse part creeps up the screen and after a while l got tired of fighting it and went back to the regular mouse and keyboard. .l probably got a bad one but by the time I ship it back I will have paid more than the premium device. That's what I get for being nickel pinching cheap-skate
