I can’t begin to tell you how awesome this idea sounds to me, but if you’re anything like me, I don’t need to. How many times have you run out of USB ports on your computer? How many USB hubs do you have taking up space on your desk and outlets on your power bars?
Again, if you’re anything like me, the answer is more than you should have, and more than is reasonable perhaps. Thankfully this could be a thing of the past. InfiniteUSB is showing a tiny little passthrough USB connector that always opens up a USB port when it occupies another, giving you effectively unlimited USB connectivity, or at least up to the ability of the USB bus to handle the devices.
There is a limit to how much power can be passed through devices this way, so InfiniteUSB handles that too. Each port has an external power adapter to supply the port and anything attached to it. This is both a plus and a negative of course – use enough of them and suddenly you have a lot more to worry about as far as available outlets go on your power bars, not less. But you shouldn’t have to plug them all in, I wouldn’t think.
The connectors are color-coded, which the designer claims makes collections of them more “vivid” and also assists users to categorize things, which I suppose never hurts.
I know this isn’t the only pass-through USB product out there, but what do you think, readers? Would you use these to ease the port shortage problem? Would the external power adapters put you off? Let us know in the comments.
(via Geeks Are Sexy)
It’s not an issue of power, or bandwidth, but latency. It takes too long for the signal to go from the laptop, get received and resent multiple times, and then the response sent back again. I think the USB standard only supports up to 7 layers (including the laptop itself) before things start getting unstable.
Wonder if too many of them would put too much pressure on the port and break the soldering…
It’s a nifty design, but unfortunately would probably be impractical. Each connector would in essence be a tiny USB hub with one input and two outputs. Each time you introduce a hub into a USB chain, it consumes power and adds to latency. Devices further down the chain would suffer from extremely poor performance.
I presume that even though they’re calling it InfiniteUSB, they’re figuring you’re not going to chain 256 of them off a single port. I would be interested in knowing how many would effectively work off a single port though.
I love the design of these cables. Simple, elegant, and efficient. The one drawback I see, as you mentioned, are the power cables. Do you have to use them all? Plugging in one wouldn’t seem to onerous to me, as I already have to plug in a power brick for my USB hub. This would hopefully let me only plug in when needed.
I like the design… 🙂
I would get these for certain applications, yes. The power adaptors do pose a question, why didn’t the company invent a power plug at the end of the power source cable for an external power supply for a given number of USB devices into one power supply which would have up to 5 power port sockets, does each device *have* to have it’s own 1000ma supply, I mean some USB devices only draw 50 to 250ma……. “B”
That’s my big question too. Maybe they can resolve it by having two versions; with power supply and without. Obviously they’re going to have to have some sort of lead cable on there to attach to whatever device it is you’re using the cable with, but I’d hope you don’t have to have the big brick on all of them too.
It should be possible to have power connectors right next to the usb port and just chain multiple together. Potentially have it capable of 5 amps or more to allow charging of multiple high current devices with one power supply.
RE: InfiniteUSB Provides Infinite USB
I think this will prove to be very popular in the months to come, ingenious idea an so simple too… :o)
Perfect idea!