A USB switch is a convenient piece of hardware to have in your homelab if you’d like to interact with multiple boxes from your same mouse and keyboard. I have one that from the factory, allowed one to cycle through a selection to choose a device, but you could not select and go directly to an individual option. Well, I decided that was not going to cut it. And I reverse-engineered the hardware and designed my own control box powered by a Pi Pico.
The Pico is running a simple Python script that I wrote. All of the signals are moving through a single cable, I thought it was a clever use of an old Cat-V cable to apply aircraft connectors to either end and interface with those. This device allows me to select an individual device based on color code, and to switch back and forth very quickly. While perhaps not necessary, it was a nice foray into hobby electronics, and it is quite the luxury when working on something in the lab.
