JetKVM Mini W offers wireless PC remote control for $42

There is a particular kind of helplessness that comes from knowing exactly how to fix a computer while being hundreds of miles away from it. If grandma, the boss, or a partner needs IT support RIGHT NOW and you’re not there, well, you know.

Remote desktop software like TeamViewer, VNC, or RustDesk is wonderful while the remote computer is up, connected, and running an operating system. But if Windows crashes, an update went spectacularly wrong, the machine won’t boot, or you need to change something in the BIOS, your beautifully configured remote desktop connection disappears along with everything else.

That’s where KVM over IP comes into play.

KVM stands for keyboard, video and mouse. One of these small boxes plugs directly into a computer’s video output and USB port, then allows you to view the screen and operate it remotely through a web browser as if you were sitting in front of it. The computer has no idea that you are in a hotel room, in another country, or even sitting in the smallest room in the house.

Traditionally, this has been a fairly specialized territory for server rooms. JetKVM has already done a good job of making it cheaper and friendlier, but this new JetKVM Mini W takes the idea to a more interesting place – at $42, putting one permanently on a major PC no longer seems extravagant.

I already have a couple of older JetKVMs and they have really saved my butt more than once.

The key difference from regular remote desktop software is that JetKVM does not depend on Windows. If Windows crashes, JetKVM continues running. If the machine does not boot, JetKVM still shows you the boot screen. Do you need the BIOS? Press Del and there it is. You can even mount installation or recovery media and boot the remote machine from there. I skipped that one with a short sentence, but remote installation is extremely useful!

That changes the type of problem that remote access can solve.

Imagine you’re at a conference and you discover that the master spreadsheet you need is on your office PC. JetKVM can send a wake-up command to a properly configured machine, even remotely. You can log in, browse for the file, and send it to yourself.

Or maybe an update left the family PC unable to boot and you received the inevitable phone call. Instead of trying to troubleshoot BIOS issues through someone else’s phone camera (yeah, let’s not do that again), you can see and control the machine yourself.

That’s what makes this niche server hardware something that a much broader group of people could actually use.

Smaller, cheaper and now wireless

JetKVM Mini will come in two versions. The $39 Mini uses Ethernet, while the $42 Mini W has 2.4/5GHz dual-band Wi-Fi. Buy three and prices drop to $33 and $36 each. Both go on sale on October 26.

The Mini W measures just 1.7 x 1.7 x 0.9 inches (42 x 42 x 23 mm), about the size of a matchbox. Setup is done via Bluetooth, after which you connect to Wi-Fi and use the same browser interface. You can connect using JetKVM’s cloud service or maintain remote access within your own VPN, such as Tailscale or WireGuard.

That wireless connection is really useful. Traditional KVMs live happily around racks and network switches. A $42 wireless one can live behind an office PC, under the TV, next to a small home server, or anywhere else where running another Ethernet cable would be annoying and expensive.

Inside is one of my favorite chip families, an Espressif. ESP32specifically the ESP32-P4X. It is a 400 MHz dual-core RISC-V microcontroller with H.264 hardware encoding, paired with an ESP32-C5 radio. The Mini W captures up to 1080p at 30fps or 720p at 60fps and streams it to the browser using WebRTC.

There’s also a microSD slot for virtual media, so recovery and OS images can live on the KVM itself. Yes, reinstall Windows from afar!

Perhaps most unusual at this price is that the firmware is open source, and JetKVM says its new ESP32 firmware will be available on day one. For a device that effectively provides unlimited keyboard, mouse and screen access to another computer, that’s important because it means the software can be independently vetted rather than simply trusted.

It is also becoming a remote desktop.

JetKVM also adds an optional OS Services component for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Once installed, JetKVM says it will offer software video capture up to 4K/60fps, a shared clipboard, terminal access and, drum roll, file transfer. The software communicates with JetKVM over USB, so not even the target computer needs network access.

The smart thing is that the software is still optional.

While Windows works, you get the useful extras you’d expect from remote desktop software. If Windows crashes or doesn’t boot, those extras go away, but JetKVM still works because it’s still connected directly to the computer’s screen, keyboard, and mouse.

In fact, you get both systems, one acting as a safety net for the other.

KVM escapes from the server room

KVM over IP sounds desperately specific. Even the name seems to belong to three menus within an enterprise IT catalog.

However, if we strip away the terminology, the proposition is simple: this little box lets you sit in front of a computer when you’re not actually sitting in front of it, even when the computer is having a really bad day.

Anyone who travels but leaves an important desk behind has a potential use for it. So does anyone who has become the unofficial help desk for friends and family. Home server owners will already understand the appeal, and the professionals figured this out a long time ago, but spent a lot more than this.

The JetKVM Mini W doesn’t suddenly make KVM over IP an exciting dinner conversation. But for $42 and it’s wireless, they may have made it cheap and simple enough that you no longer need to know what “KVM over IP” means before you discover you want one.

It is the ultimate remote access solution when the operating system is inaccessible. And if you’ve ever tried to talk to someone through a BIOS screen on the phone, $42 suddenly seems pretty reasonable.

The JetKVM Mini W goes on sale October 26 on the company’s website.