Bluetooth Mice and Keyboards...

[JHeaton]

Hello all!

We have a suite of iMacs here and they are driving me absolutely crazy. For whatever reason, they were purchased with the wireless keyboards and mice, which are causing issues on a regular basis. Each Mac starts off with a single keyboard and mouse paired, after I've spent however long sorting the whole lot out. But then we receive complaints of keyboards and mice working on machines all around the room, even though they're still sat in front of (and paired with) the machine they're supposed to be with. Someone suggested unchecking the "Discoverable" box in the Bluetooth settings, but that seems to make no difference. Does anyone know of any other way to prevent this from happening? Getting a bit tired of going over there to sort it every couple of days, not least because the teacher has absolutely no control of the students and I'm not all too fond of having to dodge whatever objects they've decided to launch this week...

Any assistance which keeps me from tearing my hair out would be much appreciated.

[soveryapt]

Could you not rename each of the keyboards / mice from within the bluetooth preferences to each machine name (so MAC001-Keyboard, MAC002-Mouse, etc). Then hopefully (and also turning off discovery). Also, once they're set up, in the Advanced settings on the Bluetooth Preferences, try turning off the "Open Bluetooth Setup Assistant at startup is no keyboard/mouse detected" as these options will hopefully stop the machines going "I CAN'T FIND MY KEYBOARD .. PANIC AND FIND ANOTHER FOR THE USER"

P.S. Agreed though, whoever made that order mad a big mistake .. I mean, wireless keyboards are great for personal use or tutor use, but for a whole suite?! GAH! lol ..

[FN-GM]

Long term i would replace the lot with wired and make the money back selling the old ones on eBay.

[kirchie]

Could be the kids are just swapping the KBs/mice around to avoid doing work. No end of times I've been called out to find that the kid's turn the switch on the PSU off.
On the note of selling the old gear, that's a bit of a grey area for schools, our one in particular. Everything that's unwanted has to be "signed off" by a governor. Last time we tried to get rid of a box of quite litterally junk (borked keyboards etc.) we got told off!

[soveryapt]

Could be the kids are just swapping the KBs/mice around to avoid doing work.

Meh .. sharpie on the base "MAC001-KEYBOARD" etc .. lol ..

Doesn't stop the swapping, but sorts out getting them back to the right machine .. lol ..

But ulimately, what @FN-GM said .. get them all wired, and check on what @kirchie said with regards to your school and selling ..

[JHeaton]

Could you not rename each of the keyboards / mice from within the bluetooth preferences to each machine name (so MAC001-Keyboard, MAC002-Mouse, etc). Then hopefully (and also turning off discovery). Also, once they're set up, in the Advanced settings on the Bluetooth Preferences, try turning off the "Open Bluetooth Setup Assistant at startup is no keyboard/mouse detected" as these options will hopefully stop the machines going "I CAN'T FIND MY KEYBOARD .. PANIC AND FIND ANOTHER FOR THE USER"

P.S. Agreed though, whoever made that order mad a big mistake .. I mean, wireless keyboards are great for personal use or tutor use, but for a whole suite?! GAH! lol ..

Does this register the name on the mouse/keyboard itself, or does that just associate the ID of that device with that Mac? Might be a handy way of seeing if the right one is at least paired to the machine though. I'll try changing those bluetooth settings and see if it makes a difference.

Long term i would replace the lot with wired and make the money back selling the old ones on eBay.

I think this will end up being my suggestion, although I can't see them going for it, sadly.

Could be the kids are just swapping the KBs/mice around to avoid doing work. No end of times I've been called out to find that the kid's turn the switch on the PSU off.
On the note of selling the old gear, that's a bit of a grey area for schools, our one in particular. Everything that's unwanted has to be "signed off" by a governor. Last time we tried to get rid of a box of quite litterally junk (borked keyboards etc.) we got told off!

They keyboards and mice are already labelled for the machine they're supposed to be with, and this doesn't seem to be what's happening. I think they're just messing around with them, honestly.

Thank you for all the replies, they're appreciated!

[3s-gtech]

Thankfully we only have the one recent iMac, ditched the godawful Magic Mouse straight away as it would have gone in someone's bag within a day. Just a shame the wired keyboards are so unbelievably expensive, and Windows ones aren't quite there. Not many (any?) third party Apple keyboards about!

[soveryapt]

Does this register the name on the mouse/keyboard itself, or does that just associate the ID of that device with that Mac? Might be a handy way of seeing if the right one is at least paired to the machine though. I'll try changing those bluetooth settings and see if it makes a difference.

Seems to be, if I use my Magic Mouse on another Mac then it shows up as SoVeryAPT-Mouse so it might work ..