[culturestate]

I may be misunderstanding your point, but couldn't the USB-based pairing that Apple uses for their keyboards and mice solve functionally all of these issues?

There's no dongle (they're bluetooth) and pairing is dead simple (plug it in once and it's available everywhere). I don't think I've ever seen a security analysis of their peripherals, but the potential for a mitm attack on the keyboard seems like it would be equal to or lower than a wired version.

This assumes, of course, that you're using Apple products across the board but it is a solution nonetheless.

[smichel17]

D'oh! Yes, if I understand correctly (I don't use Apple products[0], so this is the first I'm hearing of it), that would solve the issue, since USB cables are common enough that I wouldn't need to bring one with me just for pairing. I'll still be sticking to wired for practical reasons, for the time being, but maybe those will be fixed sooner than I expect :)

[0] I swore off of walled gardens after an unsavory experience regarding EOL of the 1st gen iPod touch — Apple effectively bricked my working hardware by taking all apps for it off the app store.

[harha]

It’s not practical when you have to do it several times a day and having a cable lying around and having to connect it sort of defies the purpose of a wireless keyboard/mouse.

Same applies to Bluetooth speakers by the way, pairing is just horribly annoying. I wish they’d just replace the volume buttons for a dedicated pairing button instead of having a different way to pair on each device (do I hold the volume or that other button? Was it 3 or 15 seconds)

I must admit having several computers is a bit of an edge case, but still.