How I setup multiple devices to share the same monitor, keyboard and mouse.

I recently purchased an Xbox series X for casual gaming. I’ve always been a PC gamer but my GPU died and it was more expensive to replace that than to get an Xbox. Since I only game casually it wasn’t a big deal. What was more of a big deal was having to unplug the monitor and input devices from my PC and plug them into the Xbox each time I wanted to play. Sure, perhaps it’s only a problem for lazy people but honestly, who has time for all that unplugging and carry on all the time.

This is my solution to that.

I started out by getting a 2 port HDMI KVM device. A KVM device allows you to have a single monitor output, and a keyboard and mouse input that is then shared between multiple (in my case, two) devices. You choose which device is active at the push of a button. I ended up getting a reasonably cost effective 2 port HDMI KVM for around about $40 AUD.

I plugged the Xbox into one input, the PC into the other and it was great, I could switch between them at the push of a button. I didn’t expect too much for the price but it’s been in use for over a year now and it’s worked great the whole time.