How would one use such a device?
My use-case is, I have some computers I use for a home lab. If I'm outside of the house and something happens to those computers that requires manual intervention, there is nothing I can do. With this, I can power the computer off and on (via a smart plug, not the KVM), then see and interact with the entirety of the boot process, including accessing BIOS, select OS on GRUB, etc. As long as the KVM has network connection, it serves as a remote interface to the phisical computer.
- Higher encoded framerate
- Loading bootable ISOs directly via the IP KVM isn't a per-BMC model dance (if the BMC does it at all, without begging for you to hack the BMC license)
- Similarly, loading drivers doesn't require making a compatible image file or finding another USB
- The web interface doesn't have any legacy crap (java/.net/activex) left in the menus
- I can cold boot a server and not lose my session
- You can paste large blocks of text and it will type it out
- You can text extract large blocks of text from the framebuffer
- You can just load standard linux packages for whatever you need in a pinch (on the PiKVM at least)
- You can actually update and secure this thing vs hoping your BMC either receives real updates or someone hacks it so you can load an open source one instead.
I'd say the main downside is the ATX power control isn't something you just "plop in". You either wire it up and use the device with the same server over long periods of time or you don't use the ATX power control.
This Youtube really helped: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhq0bsWJEOw
And there's more here: https://www.meshcommander.com/meshcommander/tutorials
It can also be really handy (with storage support) to quickly install a set of machines in a rack - either have them boot off the internal USB storage or go into the BIOS to monitor PXE boot progress and handle any input required.
* Evading corporate IT: I do not recommend doing this.
* Normal[0] remote access to a machine: Yeah, running a remote desktop in software on the machine[1] is almost always going to be easier, cheaper, more performant, and more flexible than anything you tack on externally.
[0] Where "normal" remote access means it doesn't need to work when the machine is kernel panicked or in the firmware setup screens.
[1] The machine itself can be whatever you want. It can be an always-on desktop, but it can also be a laptop that sits in the corner and that only boots up when you poke it with a Wake-on-LAN packet, or a VM on an ESXi cluster, or a (carefully secured) Hetzner Cloud VM. That part is dealer's choice depending on your needs.