This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/selfhosted by /u/pncv87 on 2025-01-30 18:56:40+00:00.

I’ve never had a post blow up like this one, Wow JetKVM, so I decided to make an update for anyone who is interested in learning more about the JetKVM, or for anyone that is waiting for one (or 3) to arrive. Also, I’ll try to answer as many questions as I can that come up in the comments.

TL;DR: this thing is pretty dang awesome. Super easy set up (once I got it working) and a fast low latency Web UI, but security could be better.

So here are my updates and impressions:

1. The peripherals are great. It comes with a mini HDMI to HDMI cable, a USB-C to USB-A cable, and a USB-C to USB-C splitter where one end is a male USB-C and the other end is split into two female USB-Cs, one for power and one for data.
2. When I powered on my unit, it was stuck on “Initialising” (how it was displayed on the screen) for a while. I did some quick googling and everything I found said it boots up fast, so I knew something was wrong. I went to the JetKVM documentation and did not find anything, so I went down to the Factory Reset section and followed the instructions. They were pretty simple and straight forward, just had to download a tool to reimage the OS, the OS image, and put the device into DFU mode, which I did using a cellphone SIM removal tool. Plugged into my laptop using the included USB-C to A cable and my laptop recognized it as USB device. Followed the instructions for flashing and it came up almost instantly.
3. I can’t say enough about the build quality. For a device that cost 69 bucks, this is pretty darn amazing. The screen is so sharp and clear and gives you all the necessary information you need up front, i.e. IP (v4 and 6) address of device, number of active connections, and if your USB and HDMI are connected. It’s also a touchscreen, which doesn’t seem to be advertised, but the touch response isn’t super great, and it doesn’t appear to have any configurable settings. The metal housing feels super solid and has great weight.
4. I currently have it set up to control an Nvidia Orin Nano dev board I’ve been working on, and it works mostly flawlessly. The Orin Nano only has a DisplayPort connection so I’m using a DisplayPort to HDMI converter. When I plugged in the JetKVM to the Orin, while the Orin was running, nothing happened and the JetKVM said no HDMI was connected. So, I rebooted the Orin, and the JetKVM changed status to HDMI connected and the image came up. This is possibly due to EDID negotiation through a converter, but I’m honestly not sure. The JetKVM Web UI has a section for changing and adding custom EDID configurations, so if anyone knows more about how EDID is negotiated and is having issues, they can try their own custom configs.
5. The Web UI is slick and very fast. Latency is pretty minimal, faster than most Enterprise level KVMs I’ve used in the past. You can also password protect the Web UI, which is obviously a good thing. However, and this is pretty big, I can’t find anywhere to enable HTTPS on the UI, which means your UI password is transmitted plaintext and I can see it being transmitted using Dev Tools on my browser. I’ll do more digging to see if I’m just missing the setting somewhere, but since the UI is pretty minimal, it seems like it might be something that has to be done on the backend. Since this device is only used in my internal network, it isn’t a complete deal breaker, but I would like to see the developers add the option in the Web UI to enable HTTPS. Another way to solve this is to put the Web UI behind a reverse proxy, but in 2025 HTTPS should be the standard, not the exception.
6. And speaking of backend, the JetKVM offers a Developer Mode, that allows you to SSH into the device. I think this is how you install TailScale on it, but I haven’t dug into that yet. This might also be where you can enable HTTPS for the Web UI. I’ll definitely be exploring the Developer Mode as I get more familiar with the device.