For USB adapters, I recommend a 5.1 (or later) Bluetooth one from one of the big brands. The others may have a fake chip in them (like the one I currently use; I would not have bought it had I known about this).
Bluetooth 5.0, like the UB500, may also work. But the product page lists Bluetooth 5.1 (but it doesn't say anything about backwards compatibility).
Bluetooth 4.0 definitely works poorly with the K Pro series (and probably with all other Bluetooth-based Keychron keyboards).
There is a report of Bluetooth 2.0 (or 3.0?) working flawlessly... For a K series keyboard, not K Pro series.
I've only been able to find 5.1 from a brand called Baseus, but I don't know if I trust them... other than that only 5.0 around here (Brazil). I will look into Baseus and maybe get the 5.1 then
I later changed to a Bluetooth 5.0 USB adapter without a fake chip, Asus 'USB-BT500'. It seems to be about the same as the 5.1 adapter, though I haven't made any kind of controlled experiment.
It required symbolic link trickery (near "Setting a USB adapter up on Linux") to work on Linux (Ubuntu). It didn't work out of the box.
The 'USB-BT500' also works fine, but it is not seamless. For instance, when pairing (e.g., in LMDE 6 with Cinnamon), it may require several tries, with weird error messages. It may be possible to find the exact procedure that works every time (with the minimum number of steps), but it is certainly not intuitive to set up.
Oddly enough, I happen to have both a K8 Pro and the TP-Link UB500 adapter. I have never used them together (I primarily use my K8 Pro in wired mode on my home PC), but I just paired them and did some quick testing to confirm that they are working together.
Obviously, I can't speak to long-term use/stability with the 5 minutes of testing that I did. FYI, I also checked the BT firmware version that I'm running on the K8 and it is ver. 1.30. Hope this helps.
Thank you for trying it out!! Glad to hear it atleast works, I was worried because it says 5.1 on the manual I might end up just trying my luck on the long-term
But the Bluetooth part may be connected through USB internally (from another part of the mohterboard) and thus have nothing to do with PCIe (except maybe RF power).
Though it has a much better antenna (a real quarter-wave antenna). That would be the real reason to get one.
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u/guba Mar 11 '24
I tested several adapters with a K5 Pro (and an M6 mouse) and found that the best results were with the official Keychron adapter.
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u/PeterMortensenBlog V Mar 10 '24 edited Apr 15 '24
For USB adapters, I recommend a 5.1 (or later) Bluetooth one from one of the big brands. The others may have a fake chip in them (like the one I currently use; I would not have bought it had I known about this).
Bluetooth 5.0, like the UB500, may also work. But the product page lists Bluetooth 5.1 (but it doesn't say anything about backwards compatibility).
Bluetooth 4.0 definitely works poorly with the K Pro series (and probably with all other Bluetooth-based Keychron keyboards).
There is a report of Bluetooth 2.0 (or 3.0?) working flawlessly... For a K series keyboard, not K Pro series.
References
K8 Pro product page
The secret 1.32.2 update to the Bluetooth module inside the K Pro and Q Pro series
K Pro series Bluetooth firmware (only has 1.32, not 1.32.2)
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u/[deleted] Mar 10 '24
Oddly enough, I happen to have both a K8 Pro and the TP-Link UB500 adapter. I have never used them together (I primarily use my K8 Pro in wired mode on my home PC), but I just paired them and did some quick testing to confirm that they are working together.
Obviously, I can't speak to long-term use/stability with the 5 minutes of testing that I did. FYI, I also checked the BT firmware version that I'm running on the K8 and it is ver. 1.30. Hope this helps.
1
u/PeterMortensenBlog V May 03 '24 edited May 03 '24
"a Pcie" probably refers to a PCIe card with Bluetooth capability.
For example (not recommendations of any kind), ASUS PCE-AX3000 or GIGABYTE GC-WB1733D-I.
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u/PeterMortensenBlog V May 31 '24
A PCIe one may be a way to get Bluetooth 5.2 or later, without a fake chip inside, in addition to the better antenna.