Is the Dell Universal Pairing USB receiver supported?

Question

Dell sells wireless keyboards and mice that use a Dell Universal Pairing system.

Does this work out of the box in Ubuntu?

Solution 1

May I suggest a workaround?

I ran into this problem with a new Dell Wireless keyboard (WK717) and mouse (WM527). These devices have 3 wireless connection options:

• via dell universal receiver
• bluetooth
• bluetooth

The doc doesn't say what is the difference between the two bluetooth modes. With my Dell Precision 7530 (Ubuntu), I can connect both keyboard and mouse via bluetooth (2 only). When pairing the keyboard, I had to enter a numeric pairing code. After that the keyboard was not working at all, but the mouse works fine.

I managed to get the keyboard to work eventually, but this required the help of a MacBook Pro where I plugged the Dell Unifying Receiver and had the keyboard in mode 1. On the Mac, a keyboard dialog opened prompting me to type the key immediately to the right of the left Shift key and then to type the key immediately to the left of the right Shift key. After that, the keyboard was fully functional on the Mac.

Finally I plugged the Dell Unifying Receiver into my Ubuntu laptop.

Now, the keyboard works just fine. Note that I didn't attempt to install Solaar: The Linux devices manager for the Logitech Unifying Receiver since the Dell Unifying Receiver is different from the Logitech Unifying Receiver.

Solution 2

The Universal Pairing software (downloaded from chosen accessory's software) does not have Linux binaries.

However if you have Windows available (possibly via Wine - n.b. untested)

1. run the Universal Pairing software on Windows OS
2. follow the steps to pair your accessories to a single Dell receiver
3. then plug that receiver into your Linux machine.

Boom. A bit tedious, but you should only need to ever do it once.

HINT: don't do what I did and try to pair a device to multiple receivers! It seems the device can only pair to one at a time.

NOTE: I tried connecting a WM527 mouse via bluetooth and found it really laggy. Might be an issue with my adapters though.

Comments

[Robert Ancell]

This device looks suspiciously similar to the Logitech Unifying receiver, and I wonder if it is a rebranded device. See askubuntu.com/questions/113984/… for information about support for that in Ubuntu.

[WinEunuuchs2Unix]

I can confirm the link is dead. Also I can confirm your second link (in comments) is correct in that I have Logitech K800 backlit keyboard and MX Pro mouse that work out of the box (plug and play). I think Elder Geek's answer is a good one given the circumstances here.

[Elder Geek]

@WinEunuuchs2Unix Since you have the hardware and can provide lsusb output I think you should write an answer to this one. I have no doubt it will be superior to mine as I am unable to provide such details.

[Morteza Milani]

It works out of the box on Ubuntu 18.10.

[Robert Ancell]

You can buy them from the New Zealand store - accessories.ap.dell.com/sna/… . I don't have one but was considering getting one.

[Elder Geek]

That's 1/2 a world away from me. (well outside my travel range.) If they have a favorable return policy at your local store you could obtain one, test it and know for certain. If not, I'd keep my money in my pocket for the time being; as I can't find any mention of support for any Linux kernel I would rate the odds extremely low.

[Elder Geek]

We don't do shopping recommendations here but I can tell you that I've had good luck with Rosewill Wireless HID's and the prices are typically more attractive.

[m.evans]

Just wanted to add that this worked great and is a likely a better solution than switching to bluetooth due to lag and limit on bluetooth device connections

[Kirill Lykov]

why did you prefer to use dell universal receiver vs bluetooth? I have a problem with the latest option and wonder if you had the same or not (askubuntu.com/questions/1394109/…)