USB keyboard not recognised

[Jhfozzy]

I recently bought my daughter a Lenovo tab E7 TB-7104F. Running Android 8.1

I have also bought a case for her with a built in micro-USB keyboard.

I was under the assumption it would be plug and play but it's not working. No numlock lights, no key presses etc.

I also have a pre-historic Tesco HUDL 1 running Android 4.2.2 and it works straight away on that. The numlock lights up, keys work, everything.

It reports on the HUDL that it's a Sigmachip USB keyboard.

I've tried everything I can think of, developer options etc. It's just weird that the ancient tab picks it up and the new one doesn't.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

John.

Edited to add:

I can use a standard USB keyboard / flash drive on the Lenovo tab via an OTG adaptor.

 

[chanchan05]

It could be one of two things. Lenovo did not decide that the tab you bought is worthy of external hardware support through USB for some reason, or you got a defective tablet. Either way you would end up returning the thing or swapping for a bluetooth keyboard.

 

[SpookDroid]

Can't find specific information about this particular model, so not sure if it does or not, but if the tablet doesn't support OTG peripherals you won't be able to use that keyboard. Have you used andy other USB devices with it (USB sticks, mouse, etc.)?

Also it might be possible you need an OTG cable to connect it through if the cable from the keyboard isn't OTG. Android support for those devices is included in the software but it's up to each manufacturer to include it or not in their hardware, so it has nothing to do with how old a tablet is but whether or not it was a budget device or a manufacturer that doesn't include these options in their hardware.