The GL.iNet Comet or GL-RM1 is a neat remote KVM device. For those who do not know what these are, there is a new class of device that provides remote keyboard, video, and mouse (KVM) plus remote media to systems that do not have onboard iKVM with baseboard management controllers. That is what the GL-RM1 does, it lets you control systems like consumer desktops remotely. Recently, the JetKVM has had more availability in the US, but after Kickstarter left us with units and no way to buy more, we realized we needed an alternative. After we bought the GL.iNet GL-BE3600 Slate 7 Mini WiFi 7 Router that we reviewed, we saw this, and folks were generally up on it, so we bought a few. As a neat one, on the second page, you will see it hooked up to an upcoming Arm workstation.
We purchased our units on Amazon. You can find an Amazon affiliate link to the listing here.
GL.iNet Comet GL-RM1 KVM Device Hardware Overview
The first thing we noticed when unboxing was this little tab that says do not use a (USB) PD adapter for the power supply.
We pulled that off and here is why it matters beyond just the warning: whatever adhesive is on that really stuck. We went 3 for 3 with these leaving significant residue. It just feels like something so simple that should not be an issue.
One side is featureless and then there is a reset button. We have had to use that once, and it worked.
On the other edge, we have a USB 2.0 port, a HDMI input port, and then a USB port that is to provide the keyboard and mouse input to the device under control.
On the other edge, there is a 5V 2A power input, and then an Ethernet port that provides the uplink.
On the bottom, we have the MAC address, and the glkvm.local which is what the machine name will register as. That may not seem like a big deal, but it was challenging to change.
Aside from the box, we also got a short HDMI cable, a USB Type-C to Type-C cable, a Type-A to Type-C cable, a short Ethernet cable, and a power adapter.
Next, let us plug this in and see how it works.
What does it look like inside?
No need for fingerbot if you have smart power outlet controlled from the app via wifi. My experience with Tapo P100 was great. As long as you remember to set Restore Power State in BIOS settings to Always On.
can you KVM more than 1 computer with this device?
connecting ethernet port to switch and many computers to the same switch?
Apologies if this was mentioned and I missed it, but can you add USB storage for ISOs?
Wait, MS-*R*1? There is/was an ARM flavor for the Minisforum MS series? How did I miss that?
If it supports Tailscale does it also do plain WireGuard?
Two security-related items to check.
1) When the device starts up and is running but you don’t login to the device, where on the internet does it try to go? I’ve seen a few devices similar to this with hard-coded configurations trying to reach back to China.
2) Have the case been opened to check for “extras” on the logic board? There was a number cheap KVM from China on Amazon that had a small microphone loaded on the logic board.
How does this device compare to the JetKVM? Availability notwithstanding, which devices is better/more polished/better featured?
I sure hope they have two big improvements coming for their next versions: USB PD, and even cooler would be 2.5g ethernet with passthrough on the PoE version. That would be killer for rackmounting minipcs and having a single cable to the unit.
For those asking, this does NOT work with an actual KVM to control multiple devices. I reached out to them about it, they blew me off simply saying it’s not supported.
STH can you please do an article and bring some attention to what this KVM tries to connect to? Log it’s traffic through a firewall and you’ll see.
So far I’ve seen mine:
1) Pings multiple public DNS servers multiple times a second CONSTANTLY to simply update the status of its LED light to show it has a working connection. If the pings fail the front light flashes. The developers said on the forum that this is unfortunate but it is the only way to do it. Anything else would mean the LED light would take too long to update. Come on now…. if you had dozens of these on a network your public IP would be pounding public DNS servers with hundreds of pings a second, that’s simply not acceptable.
2) Connects to STUN servers constantly even if no cloud or remote services are being used. The developers blame PiKVM for this. Why would it need to know it’s public IP if it’s only being used locally?
3) It is hard coded to used public NTP servers with no option in the UI to configure it. While it can be overridden in the terminal (until a firmware update puts it back ) the response on the forum from the developers was that being able to set your ntp server is unnecessary as a configuration option and would confuse users. Ridiculous…. Set a reasonable default of pool.ntp.org and then give people the option to change it if they want.
I’ve never had any of their products before but these are some really bad takes from the dev team, hopefully not a sign of things to come.
I wound up blocking all access to the Internet from mine as I just use it locally (or through a VPN) and it constantly pounding public servers with pings is unacceptable.
Officially, glinet does not support Linux. I bought this because of price. I’ve found their support rather marginal and avoids really helping customers. I’ve found that if you have TrueNAS or Proxmox, without a graphical desktop, a CLI console will not display. I fiddled with the EDID code and was able to get the console display, but after an update it no longer displays. At best, when it would display, the text would overflow at the bottom of the display window to where you couldn’t see it.
Is it worth ditching a decades old Lanteonix Spider for one of these?
I bought one of these after this review. I’m happy with it so far but what you’ve failed to highlight is that you aren’t stuck to 1080p. There’s 4k30 and 1440p60 options for displays in that dropdown.
Matt B I looked that up since I was worried too and someone did a look at it that I read thru on Medium https://medium.com/engineering-iot/remote-control-done-right-reviewing-the-comet-pro-remote-kvm-b3f2141fb84a
PiKVMs are better IMO. I use them with Cloudflare tunnels and they are very expandable devices. You can add their 4 port switch which allows you to move between endpoints within the same UI. Very regularly updated by the devs too. Yes, a bit more expensive than the competition but worth it to me at least. And a hell of a lot cheaper than an Avocent.
Based on some of their developers comment is sounds like a lot of this was a fork of PiKVM. Also they have a known hardware issue with their ATX controller board, its not a big problem but its been reported to them for months, allegedly they have a fix in the works but it took me joining their recent kickstarter and asking them there to get a solid answer on that.
https://forum.gl-inet.com/t/gl-atxpc-may-have-a-design-issue/64693
https://forum.gl-inet.com/t/power-led-passthrough-from-atx-board-doesnt-work-quite-right/59809/2
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/glinet/comet-pro/comments?comment=Q29tbWVudC00NjA0MTg0MA%3D%3D&reply=Q29tbWVudC00NjA0ODc3Ng%3D%3D
i got a pre-order one of these before the usb-pd warning was added.
warning id one to take very serious, one of my units ended up needing to be RMA’d after connecting to an anker usb-c pd charger!