What it’s like to use a keyboard and mouse on PS4 or Xbox One with the Keymander

On consoles, you use a gamepad to play shooters. On PC, you use a keyboard and mouse. And never the twain shall meet.

Unless you have a piece of hardware from IOGear called the Keymander.

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The IOGear Keymander is a little box that enables you to connect a keyboard and mouse to your PlayStation 4, Xbox One, or last generation consoles. This means that instead of using thumbsticks on a DualShock 4 to aim in a shooter like Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, you can get the precision of a mouse. I’ve tested out the device over the last few days, and I can report that it really works — although it will likely take you some time to get it set up the way you want.

To begin using the Keymander, which is available for purchase for $100, you need to get everything hooked up properly. This means plugging a keyboard, mouse, and a gamepad into the three USB ports on the front of the device. You can then connect a USB cable from the game slot on the back to one of the USB ports on the console. Once that is done, you simply need to turn on the system, and you should now have the option to use your keyboard and mouse to control games.

Now, I would point out that you need to ensure you have updated firmware for the Keymander from IOGear to get it working with the current-generation systems. It also doesn’t work with the PlayStation 4 Pro yet, which caused me a night of headaches.

Outside of those issues, however, the device is fairly simple to get working. It is also relatively easy to remap buttons without have to plug the Keymander into a PC. You need to hit a combination of buttons on the gamepad to enter a setup mode, and then you can assign keys one at a time.

Where you may run into problems is with the mouse settings. Getting the sensitivity correct will likely require you to plug the Keymander into a computer so that you can fine tune your adjustments. I’ve gone back and forth between playing Call of Duty and the Keymander software on my system, and the mouse controls are starting to feel better — although they still aren’t exactly where I want them.

But the point is that I now should have far more precision than anyone I’m playing against on the PlayStation 4, and it certainly felt that way at times. About four minutes into the video at the top of this article, you can see me take on a series of opponents on my own and with ease. It felt great to be able to snap onto an opponent for a headshot or an accurate body shot in an instant.

At the same time, however, I still stunk at the game overall. I was obviously playing against players who knew the maps better and knew how to predict my movements, and I think that is still a more important advantage than having a mouse. But if you were to combine the mouse and keyboard with a player who is already familiar with everything in a game, that is a potent combination that I would not want to go up against.