Ten Minutes With Belkin’s Cablefree USB Hub March 19, 2007

Intro: Belkin’s CableFree USB Hub and Dongle ($130) A USB hub with four slots and a difference: no wires. “This Hub,” the blurb says, “allows people to place their laptop anywhere in the room while still maintaining wireless access to their USB devices, such as printers, scanners, hard drives, and MP3 players.” The CableFree uses a new kind of wireless connection called Ultra Wide-band, or UWB, designed to allow devices to move wireless data between them more quickly than infrared and Bluetooth. Indeed, Belkin has touted the hub as “the industry’s first USB Hub to enable wireless connectivity between a computer and its USB peripherals.”

Exec Sum: Requires patience, but a useful device if your peripherals are far from your computer.

My tenminut.es: The device combines a hub, a USB dongle and a USB dongle stand (not pictured). Also included is a power supply.

Unlike ordinary USB hubs you have to install drivers and a controller that sits in your XP system tray.

Once that’s done you still need to pair the hub with the dongle, a fiddly and unsatisfactory affair.

Why? Well, first off the dongle is too big to fit most multiple USB ports — meaning most computers. Which is why Belkin shipped a dongle stand. Meaning more cables. Add to that the power unit you have to attach to make the remote hub work and you’d be forgiven for thinking that you actually have more wires now than if you’d just stuck with the old USB hub.

The other problem is actually getting the thing connected. I did indeed place my hub across the room, but it’s a small room — about three metres across, as the crow flies — which should be well within range of the device. But it never stayed connected for long, flitting in and out of signal strength and connectivity. Eventually the connections settle and remain stable, but it’s an annoying initial period.

Frankly this may explain why this thing has taken so long to get to market. (Belkin says its original chipset manufacturer stepped away from the CableFree USB business, hence the delay.) UWB technology sounds like a great idea, until you try it.

Verdict: Great idea. But this device — and possibly UWB itself — isn’t ready for prime-time. Don’t buy if you’re not ready for a bit of a bumpy ride.

Score: 5 out of 10.

Postscript (a couple of months later): To be fair, this device has not given me any subsequent problems, and seems to connect quite well after these initial teething troubles.