Wireless USB hubs

HaggiZ writes "Here is alternative to the clutter of USB cables and keys sitting on your desk. Now Belkin has announced their own wire-free USB setup. It's a wireless USB hub, allowing your to plug devices into the hub and have your PC/laptop elsewhere and not need to worry about running cables along the livingroom or study to reach. Very handy for laptop users, I can imagine some very handy uses for so HTPCs as well. Shipping in spring for a shave under $130."

Comments

Sounds good, but maybe not?

[PlayCleverFully]

Well, yeah, it sounds great and will probably be great for lots of things.

However, performance will drop on these items, even the fastest wireless gaming mouses have a semi-noticable lag when you use them. This lag in other items could create problems, like obfuscated code going to printers, etc.

Also, a security issue if you live in close-quarters (apartments, office buildings) because people could sniff the "packets" between the hub and device. They could watch you on your webcam, when you have your webcam software off.

Well, it will probably be good, the cons are not too bad, I will actually probably buy one myself.

Re:Sounds good, but maybe not?

[ergo98]

High bandwidth DOES NOT NECESSARILY MEAN LOW LAG!!!!

Point to point high bandwidth almost certainly does mean low lag. In this case even if it (ridiculously) had 100,000 byte packets (which is ridiculous), that's still only 8ms "lag", or faster than 125 frames per second.

So thanks for the bit of pragmatic wisdom, but unfortunately in this case you're being an idiot.

Re:Sounds good, but maybe not?

[Persol]

There is negligible transmission latency

And you know that how? It's not just the aount of time the radio waves take. It's also the encoding and decoding. Theoretically they could have a 1 second buffer in there, giving you a second of lag. (Not that they would)

The point is, there will be extra lag introduced because of this... and none of us can say how much unless we know exactly how this thing works.

Re:Sounds good, but maybe not?

[ergo98]

And you know that how? It's not just the aount of time the radio waves take. It's also the encoding and decoding. Theoretically they could have a 1 second buffer in there, giving you a second of lag. (Not that they would)

I know it by simple logic. It's a high bandwidth, short hop device, point to point technology, which alone ensures low latency. Couple that with the fact that it's intended for devices that are intolerant of latency, and that pretty much seals the case. Arguing otherwise is just inane.

Re:Sounds good, but maybe not?

[dslbrian]

I know it by simple logic. It's a high bandwidth, short hop device, point to point technology, which alone ensures low latency.

This is not true, I know having designed ICs in this area that the other posters are correct in that high bandwidth is not equal to low latency. In fact this is a real design challenge in things such as wireless controllers for game consoles, where latency is everything. You are correct that many USB devices can tolerate latency (printers and such), but not keyboards and mice.

Personally one thing I always liked about USB - and I think this is its best feature - is the 5V supply line. Designing USB peripherals is nice when you can just tap power off of it. Unfortunately wireless breaks that, so all those devices will need either wall plugs or batteries...

Re:Bluetooth

[marcello_dl]

Well but you would have to scrap your usb devices for bluetooth ones, when (if) available.

Re:Bluetooth

[EvilMonkeySlayer]

I have a PVR, the Humax 9200T. It allows me to record etc from digital tv/radio.
I can transfer those recordings from it to a pc via a USB connection, unfortunately whenever I want to transfer those it means connecting my laptop upto it. Because of the PVR's location in a cabinet it is a bit of hassle.

With a wireless usb adapter it essentially means I can transfer those recordings to my laptop/desktop pc with the minimum of hassle.

Not everything uses or supports bluetooth.

Not the wire to the hub

[Lord Apathy]

I don't know how useful this will be to me. Its not the wire, one, running to the usb hub, but the wires, four, running from the hub to the devices. Now if I could just plug in a wireless dongle to each device that would be cool.

Beware?

[The Step Child]

Interesting that Belkin doesn't give an approximate range.

Re:Bluetooth

[MBCook]

Bluetooth 2.0+EDR (which is on Macs, I don't know about other computers) is 3.0 Mbps. Faster, but still not there.

But like the grandparent post said, the real point is that most things aren't available in Bluetooth. You want to plug in your external hard drive by Bluetooth? You can't buy one that would let you do that. Is your digital camera designed to use Bluetooth to connect to your computer? Your drawing tablet? Your PDA? Your cell phone? Your printer? Your DVD-RW drive?

Some of these things may be available in Bluetooth, but if they were and if your computer supported Bluetooth you probably would be using it already. This is a solution for things that must be USB (or you don't want to fork out to buy the Bluetooth version), and I can see it being quite handy. It would be nice to have a little collection of USB stuff that I could plug into my laptop with one little adapter so I'm still cordless instead of the wire running over to the hub. And with a HTPC (as someone else mentioned) you could use this to plug USB stuff in by the couch where you are (game pads, memory sticks, etc) instead of having to reach behind your collection of AV equiptment where the PC is.

Problem with their implementation

[sqrammi]

The problem with their implementation is that the USB dongle that comes with the hub will not enable you for future Wireless USB devices, i.e. all you get is a hub, and that's it. So if you buy one of these, you'll also have to buy another Wireless Host Controller or Host Wired Adapter a few months down the road to give you full wireless USB capabilities. I'm holding out for one of those, personally.

All comes down to compatibility

[eberta]

I have seen attempts to do this before and even bought one (albeit it was just point-to-point and designed specifically for printers). I would not buy it until some independent testing was done it (Tom's hardware style). Basically my HP printer would work for a week or two and then it would just return with communication error until I power cycled everything. I remember a movement to make an official WUSB (wireless USB) protocol, but it did not seem to go anywhere. If Belkin finally made a version that actually works on most hardware without glitches, hurray to them. It is a very difficult task because of the way USB works.

Re:Bluetooth

[Anonymous Coward]

I've used it for keyboards and mice, as well as PDA sync and such. It's great for what it is - cable replacement for peripherals. Bluetooth is NOT a wireless networking solution.

Belkin?

[ElephanTS]

I, for one (to use the standard /. form), wouldn't touch Belkin drivers if you paid me. This sounds like a good idea but in practise? You know there'll be big headaches.

Claimed Vs Actual Throughput

[uncleroot]

If UWB is like 802.11x then the actual throughput will at best only be about half the claimed speed since the protocol will eat up the other half. Because wireless is half-duplex and has to use the much less efficient Carrier Sense Avoidence instead of Carrier Sense Detection to avoid collusions, your 54 mbps 802.11g router will give you maybe 30 megs tops under ideal conditions. And the more devices talking at the same time the slower it goes as they all try to contend for the medium like a bunch of truckers all trying to talk on the same CB channel at the same time. I'm guessing that a UWB wireless USB hub that claimed 480 mbps on the box when you bought it will actually run a lot slower in the real world. Sadly, vendors usually feel free to use the highest numbers available to them to market the products even if the customers will never achieve those numbers in actual use.