Can I use two wireless keyboards with my iMac?

We were hoping that our iMac would accept two wireless Bluetooth keyboards of the exact same model to be used at the same time. (Lego 2 player, in case you're wondering)

However, I can't seem to pair the second. I thought as long as we used different keys to control each player, we'd be fine.

Anyone have any idea?

Solution 1:

You can connect a wired and wireless keyboard at the same time.

I don't have a way to test two wireless right now, but how are you doing it? Just turning on the second keyboard won't work. Your iMac won't bother because one is already connected. Have you tried connecting manually? In the Bluetooth preferences you can manually connect to other devices. Of course both keyboards have to be paired first. If you have the Bluetooth menu turned on in the preferences, you can try connecting from there as well.

Solution 2:

Multiple keyboards is no problem. If using wireless, specifically Apple bluetooth, then once one has been connected, it won't ever bother trying to connect to another one unless you force it. 2 ways of doing this:

1) Turn off your old keyboard, then turn on your new one, and pair it up

2) Manually add another keyboard in system preferences - methods vary depending on OS level

Once you have done this, then so long as both are turned on, then both will be be available to use.

The only provisos are that any keyboard bindings or setup etc will apply to both, you cannot use different settings per keyboard - they will function identically - you will need to ensure that you use different keys if you wish for 2 people to play a game using a keyboard each, or you will end up both controlling the same character. I have no idea what happens when you put caps lock on, it may or may not work on both inputs, or may be specific to the keyboard you used it on - be wary of odd things like that where perhaps a keyboard not showing caps lock is using it etc.

Also, within system preferences you may not be able to identify which keyboard is which, and things like battery level indicators etc will apply to the keyboard which connected first, not to both, and you won't know which this is. To get round this, enable the Bluetooth menu bar icon and you can view settings directly per device from the menu bar