Regular viewers will know I reviewed several KVMs a while back and now I have the very new Comet Q from GL-iNET.
The Comet Q is WEIRD. All you get in the box is the round, black Comet Q, a removeable orange protective sleeve and instructions. This tiny device has a nice touch screen. No Ethernet connections, no HDMI, the unit has a USB-C input and an auxiliary USB-C pass-through (to provide power to the target device). Video is via DP Alt mode only – no HDMI.
The Comet Q uses WiFi 6. A wonderful start in which it asked me which SSID to connect to, directly from it’s own colour screen – and that worked just fine…. it then produced an address on my network and I left the unit plugged into USB on my mini-PC which is in a cupboard and which runs my home automation… and that’s where it started to go wrong initially but bear with me – it turns out my cheap-ish mini-PC for Home Assistant doesn’t support DP Alt mode – I just found that out 10 days after starting the review. I didn’t use any kind of extension lead… just the permanent USB output that comes with the Comet-Q.
From my main PC I could talk to the unit – but it could not see any kind of DP Alt Mode video coming from home Home Assistant box. That as it turns out was an issue with the box, not the Comet-Q.
How do I know the mini-PC is working? Because I already control it using a JETKVM KVM from my PC (hdmi connection) – so no worries there…. Next step – bring the Comet Q back into my office and plug it into my Samsung S24 Ultra phone to see if I can remote into THAT.
My phone immediately responded that it was connected to an external display – good start. That’s my phone you see in the photo below – and I know the display is correct as I often connect it to an external monitor.
Initially I could not get the mouse to work – but that’s a setting – switch to “relative mouse movement”. I like the Comet Q – the picture quality even on my 5Ghz Wifi 7 (GL-iNET) router is good at “best picture” setting but not perfect using the current up to date v1.8.1 alpha software on the Comet Q. Sound and mouse work just fine.
I’m continuing a conversation with GL-iNet who have asked me to try the new BETA software.
Meanwhile the more I get into this the more fun it gets – clipboard copy-paste works just fine. This is a fine addition to my arsenal of remote access hardware – just a shame my Home Assistant PC doesn’t support “DP Alt mode” but aside from that the Comet Q is marvellous. More when I get the latest software updates on this brand new product.
Update 20/06/2026
After a weekend at the sea, I came back home, having only recently after dedicating my second-best mini-PC to TV box use (as our TV box was getting a bit laggy) and feeling guilty about limiting a fine mini-PC to television use. As I write this – the Comet-Q it plugged into the mini-PC and my wife is watching HD TV on it.. meanwhile….
Not only am I watching YouTube on the Mini-PC using Comet Q while sitting in my office on my main PC (2nd monitor) but I’m also typing this blog update on the same TV-dedicated PC, again while sitting at my desk in my office.
So after some initial doubts I’m very happy with Comet-Q. Of course with Windows I could have done almost the same thing via “remote Desktop Connection” or AnyDesk but the latter would require permission from someone at the miniPC and I’m pretty sure neither would allow my wife to continue to watch TV on the box uninterrupted – at the same time as I’m using it for something else.
I AM having problems doing a partial screen grab image of this blog entry – can’t find copy-paste commands – but that’s no doubt me.