HP USB PS2 Washable Keyboard

If your work environment is very dusty, or if you're a bit of a klutz with your coffee mug or soft drink, consider investing in HP's USB PS2 Washable Keyboard. It's a $69 keyboard that's impervious to dust and liquids and it will keep on truckin' even after the most severe of spills.

Whether you spill a sticky soft drink on it while watching a funny YouTube video, or whether a lot of dust gets into the nooks between the keys while you're on the wood shop floor, you can simply place the keyboard under running water and give it a thorough scrub. You don't have to worry about ruining the board, nor do you have to remove every key to clean underneath them. The board has a sealed structure that keeps liquids and dust from flowing through to its circuit.

You can see from the above video that the keyboard can be plugged straight in to a PC and used, even if it's still wet -- just make sure that the USB plug is dry (inside and out) before you plug it back in. To dry the keyboard, just turn it upside down and shake it, wipe it down, and give it a bit of time -- it's not fun to type on a wet keyboard anyway.

What makes the Washable Keyboard convenient to clean is its extension cable, which has a USB connection only a few centimetres from edge of the keyboard and allows you to disengage it from the PC without having to venture around to the rear of the PC.

In addition to its USB connection, the Washable Keyboard ships with a PS/2 connector so that it can be used on older motherboards. It's a comfortable keyboard to type on as its keys have plenty of travel and response, but we found the left Shift key to be too small for our liking.