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Help How are you connecting your USB devices?
- Thread starter ODog2323
- Start date
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- motorola xoom
androidguy65
Well-Known Member
You need an otg cable. If you want one fast get the Motorola one from best buy or their site. If you want it cheap check eBay for an otg cable. Note: on eBay it will most likely ship from china and take a couple weeks
OTG? I guess that's different from the various adapters I've seen seeing on amazon?
I'm looking for something that's male micro USB on one side and female full USB on the other.
jaiotu
Member
OTG = "On The Go"
USB OTG is a standard created to allow mobile devices access to USB peripherals without needing an additional USB port beyond the one that allows the device to work in USB "slave" mode. Standard USB devices operate via four pins. An OTG cable has a fifth pin that can be either grounded or floating. A grounded pin signals the software running on the device that you are plugging in a device that you want to access via "host mode."
If your adapter is merely a "gender changer" that lacks that crucial "short" to ground, it's not going to work... unless you find a way to manually signal the software that you want to use the USB port in host mode. I did this with a simple toggle on the commandline on my old Nokia n800 using a cable that a spliced by hand... I could have made the cable with the short, but I lack decent soldering skills.
One limitation is that the power from the device's USB port is not sufficient for powering USB thumb drives. You are basically limited to devices that have their own power supply or require low power like Keyboards and Mice. You can get around this limitation using a powered USB hub, but I'm not sure if the XOOM ships with drivers for USB mass storage devices.
I recently purchased one of those cheap adapters off Amazon that claims to be a host-mode adapter... I still haven't taken the time to test and see if it works, and won't have an opportunity to test until Monday when I'm off work.
USB OTG is a standard created to allow mobile devices access to USB peripherals without needing an additional USB port beyond the one that allows the device to work in USB "slave" mode. Standard USB devices operate via four pins. An OTG cable has a fifth pin that can be either grounded or floating. A grounded pin signals the software running on the device that you are plugging in a device that you want to access via "host mode."
If your adapter is merely a "gender changer" that lacks that crucial "short" to ground, it's not going to work... unless you find a way to manually signal the software that you want to use the USB port in host mode. I did this with a simple toggle on the commandline on my old Nokia n800 using a cable that a spliced by hand... I could have made the cable with the short, but I lack decent soldering skills.
One limitation is that the power from the device's USB port is not sufficient for powering USB thumb drives. You are basically limited to devices that have their own power supply or require low power like Keyboards and Mice. You can get around this limitation using a powered USB hub, but I'm not sure if the XOOM ships with drivers for USB mass storage devices.
I recently purchased one of those cheap adapters off Amazon that claims to be a host-mode adapter... I still haven't taken the time to test and see if it works, and won't have an opportunity to test until Monday when I'm off work.