The physical device (B-Unit) is typically used for remote access without the keyboard. Subsequent logins post initial setup are either through the keyboard biometrics or the B-Unit and most are using the keyboard. Normal login process is username/password + keyboard or B-Unit. They also have a standalone USB fingerprint scanner.
I remember the first time I saw a trader holding up his b-unit to the monitor, I thought it was some hazing ritual they were putting me through. Until that point I had only done small shop IT. It blew my mind when I realized not only was this trader really screaming at me for real, I couldn't believe that it did eventually work.
Bloomberg support is amazing. Whenever I had to call them as an IT guy for a trading firm, the calls were over in about 3-5 minutes.
I came in here to explain this.
I worked IT at a company closely affiliated with Bloomberg L.P.
Basically everyone had a Bloomberg terminal and B-Unit.
It is how we communicated with a lot of people at Bloomberg.
In our stock room we had nearly every type of terminal dating back to maybe the 80's. Eventually we sent them back.
My most pleasant surprise was that the B-Unit for detecting the flashes worked over remote desktop. I figured however it was detecting the frequency would not translate, but it works perfect fine even over a so-so quality remote desktop connection. Sort of makes you wonder how sophisticated it really is...
And this is not just once- I used it repeatedly over many years.
Yes, I primarily use mine over remote desktop for the direct line to BBG and in-house programs need more power than a laptop provides. Definitely have had to adjust contrast settings more than I would like but nature of the beast I guess.
It works well over remote desktop... unless you have a screen tinter like f.lux. I didn't expect changing the light color to break the flash detection, but it does.
I'll pass the feedback along. I suppose it just hasn't come up before during testing. If you have an active login please go through the normal channel and ask help to enter request to support f.lux and I can help connect it to the right people.
Considering Bloomberg absolutely doesn't want you to be able to use it remotely I find that hard to believe... if you use windows remote desktop into a machine running the bloomberg terminal it can detect that and will not function.
I remote in to my machine running BBG on the trading desk from my office all the time with no difficulties. Also remote into my office desktop from home and log into BBG that way as well.
