Hands-on Review: IoGear's Wireless USB Hub & Adapter

You may be asking, "What's Wireless USB?" Good question: Wireless USB is, in theory, a wireless version of the good old USB protocol, designed to give you plug-and-play access to all sorts of devices without the cable. It's a lot like Bluetooth (with a maximum range of about 30 feet), only (ostensibly) easier to use and (theoretically) much faster. It's an interesting technology that lies somewhere between Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. The first Wireless USB devices are coming on the market now (and Wireless USB will soon be integrated into laptops, just like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth), and I got some hands-on time with one of the first, IoGear's Wireless USB Hub & Adapter.

As the name implies, this kit comes in two pieces. The adapter portion looks just like a USB thumbdrive and you connect it to your PC. The hub looks like any other USB hub, just with an antenna on it, and it includes four standard USB ports. You plug it into wall power as well.

Setup was a little tricky. You have to install special software to manage the pairing of hub and adapter, then plug the hub into the PC for it to register. Only then can you disconnect it and use it wirelessly via the adapter. It took about 10 minutes to get everything up and running (and the manual is not a lot of help), but finally I had the devices paired and was able to connect just fine to the hub. Plug and play worked well: I stuck a regular USB storage drive into the hub, and it autodetected on my PC across the room. So far, so good!

I experienced a few problems when I began to use the device in earnest. When I first began copying files I experienced a complete system crash that required a reboot. But eventually things stabilized and copying became possible. I experimented with it by transferring 100MB worth of data to a thumbdrive over the Wireless USB connection. From 5 feet away, the 100MB copied in 84 seconds. That's considerably slower than the 23 seconds the same transfer took via standard USB plug and not a whole lot better than Wi-Fi, which took 106 seconds to make the transfer. That's not great, but not tragic.

A bigger problem with the device is its robustness. In addition to the aforementioned crash, turning the hub off and back on sometimes made it impossible to reconnect without rebooting my PC. I encountered this problem repeatedly, often spending 10 minutes to reconnect the thing. Worse still, after moving about 10 to 12 feet away from the hub, I invariably dropped the connection altogether.

As it stands, Bluetooth may be slow but it is far simpler to deal with. Until reconnection is a little easier I'd hesitate recommending the product. Design-wise, the product won't win any awards either, and at $200 for the kit, the price is more than a little hard to swallow. Maybe consider a Wi-Fi-enabled USB hub instead.

For now, most users will probably find existing solutions like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth work just fine, but when laptops begin to come with Wireless USB preinstalled (and software is tweaked so the constant reboots are no longer needed) products like this will likely become more compelling.