Quick guide I wrote up for something I set up the other night!
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Nice clean write-up. Good job m8
oooh, I am going to use Amals KBR1 for my PC that I could use with my laptop, hell I could potentially take that out of its case and try and make it smaller
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Thanks!
Most of it, IS case. When you open it up, it is the 2 boards ( Circuit and Antenna ) quite small.
So you should have no problems
Might just peel it out of its case shove it in a usb drive and hose it down with epoxy or hot glue to keep it secure
This has me wondering… would it be possible / viable to wire an RFID reader (like the little one used in the original post) inside a wireless keyboard?
I guess I’m more asking if 2 x AAA batteries powering a keyboard would be sufficient to read an implant? (an on/off switch would probably be good so it’s not constantly draining the batteries too.)
I know you’d need to somehow transmit that to the PC too. I’m not really a tinkerer in such terms these days but if it’s something that could be possible i might get back into it just for something fun to do!
My PC is hooked to the lounge room TV so this would be the ultimate lazy xEM project 
If your keyboard has enough empty space inside, and a usb port entry the it should be pretty easy to modify, could potentially solder directly to the usb port of the keyboard internally so nothing would look different on the outside of the keyboard, but you would still not be able to use that port ever again.
Since your keyboard is wireless, then it probably doesn’t have either of the above, which sadly means the usb reader won’t work.
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Great idea, and would be a cool project.
But my initial thoughts are I don’t think it would be possible for 2 reasons:-
Transmission / communication
Effectively you are plugging a “keyboard ( KBR1 )” into a Keyboard. ( no drivers needed, so could be okay )
Your actual keyboard would need a USB port ( I have 3 Wireless keyboards, but none of mine have any ports )
I have only ever seen One keyboard with a USB port ( not to say there aren’t any others out there though) the one I saw was wireless encrypted, and the USB was for charging other devices ( Big battery)
Power; you would, as you rightly suggested, need an On/Off. (would be essential)
Power, you would also need to test the power requirements to operate, but a simple modification could achieve most likely possibilities.
It would be doable, if ALL the stars align and you found the unicorn keyboard, If it exists!
If I found one, I would:-
sort power requirements for KBR1
Mount KBR1 internal to the keyboard
Maximise battery capacity
install a switch ( I have a few more thoughts around this, but will share those if you find a keyboard)
Still a great Idea, and I hope somebody else has a suggestion/solution for you 
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Thanks for a detailed reply! I figured a wireless keyboard with USB port would be a kind of impossibility to find, so i just wondered if a mini arduino or something could do a similar job via Bluetooth.
I guess I can just run a 6ft USB extension under the carpet to the couch instead 
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I considered putting it inside my laptop and wiring it up to the usb port but I think the thing that would be iffy putting it inside something would be its ability to read the chip.
Or do as I did. Velcro it to the edge of your wired keyboard . Plug into the extra usb on keyboard and call it a day. (I know it’s not wireless lol). I do like the idea for reducing the size to a smaller usb dongle. Might try that.
You might be able to find a way to just wire it right before the bluetooth module on a wireless keyboard instead of directly to the usb port. It probably sends the same commands as a regular keyboard so there shouldnt need to be any special coding on either side.
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Hmm, I’ll definitely look into this. Thanks for the idea.
Keyboard wedges are great because they work everywhere without additional drivers. The problem I have with them is, you essentially combine two input channels - keyboard and RFID reader - into one, meaning at some point you invariably end up “typing” your UID into a Word document or a chat channel.
I prefer using a separate channel for the reader, and Rohos Logon Key. It’s less ubiquitous or easy because you need a compatible reader, and you need do install stuff. But once it’s setup right, you don’t need to type anything: just scan and you log in. And it won’t type garbage in your current window if you scan when you shouldn’t.
I considered recommending this, but it’s very unlikely to work. Wireless keyboards have a microcontroller interpreting the keypresses from a grid array or a multiplexer, which is then sent to the Bluetooth module over an interface like UART or I2C. That means there’s nowhere on the board you could just splice in wires from a USB reader and have the wireless keyboard just send it along. They’re speaking a different language.
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Oh yeah, here’s another thing you might want to consider if you want to use a keyboard wedge outside of the US: they all send hex values as 0-9 and A-F keypresses… as sent by a US keyboard. Meaning if you use the US keyboard layout, you get 0123456789ABCDEF. If you use a French keyboard layout, you get à &é"’(§è!çQBCDEF. If you use a Dvorak, you get 0123456789ABKE>U, etc. And it gets worse if you use several layouts depending on the language you write in, as I do.
In short keyboard wedges are only convenient if you use a keyboard layout with 0-9A-F in the same locations as a US keyboard layout.
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Given the range on these chips and their usual location is that really a common issue?
It seems to be for me. There are two cases where I get spurrious keystrokes in an open window with a keyboard wedge:
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I’m distracted by a colleague who walks into my office. I chat with him, and when he’s about to leave, I instinctively put my hand on the reader to unlock the PC and carry on working. Only the PC hasn’t been idle long enough and hasn’t gone to the screen saver. I walk in and out of my office many times a day, and the unlocking routine has become a sort of involuntary muscle memory movement.
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I unlock the PC normally by putting my hand on the reader. Only I didn’t put my hand exactly where I should have. Maybe a bit too much over the edge of the reader or something. The reader just about takes one reading, the PC unlocks, the reader loses contact with my chip, then immediately reaquires it and sends a string of garbage into the current window of my now-unlocked PC.
Plus, like I said, if I happen to have a non-US keyboard layout active when the PC is locked, the wedge plain doesn’t work and I have to enter my password manually, which is really annoying. Not to mention, I’m used to typing my passwords in one keyboard layout, not necessarily in all the others, so it’s even more annoying when it happens.
None of this is an issue with a reader with a dedicated interface.