4 ms·

There was a thing that was around 10 or 11 years ago called "Wireless USB", and it was actually kind of cool. It did exactly what it sounds like, you could plug

There was a thing that was around 10 or 11 years ago called "Wireless USB", and it was actually kind of cool. It did exactly what it sounds like, you could plug in two different arbitrary USB devices into hubs or a computer that supported wireless USB, and the computer would just recognize it as a vanilla USB device. I don't actually know why it never caught on, I thought it was neat, and it seemed to work fine. I guess due to the popularity and ubiquity of bluetooth? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_USB https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_USB EDIT: Looks like it was more than 10 years ago, circa 2009 or so. Time has no meaning.

codetrotter 3y ago
First time I heard about Wireless USB was just the other day, in a video looking at a luggable computer from 2006. https://youtu.be/OO5hYhdxIuk https://youtu.be/OO5hYhdxIuk Video is worth a watch although it also doesn’t give an answer for why Wireless USB actually disappeared. I was wondering after watching that video, if it could be due to security concerns? Like, is the Wireless USB protocol encrypted? And if so, does it use sufficiently strong encryption? I did find a document that talks a bit about Wireless USB encryption. https://cdn.teledynelecroy.com/files/appnotes/wireless_usb_encryption.pdf https://cdn.teledynelecroy.com/files/appnotes/wireless_usb_e...
- tombert 3y ago
  I actually saw that video, but I had heard of Wireless USB for awhile. My manager at my first job after dropping out of college the first time got it for his computer and he was super excited. At least according to Wikipedia, it was encrypted.
  - lupusreal 3y ago
    There's "encrypted", and there's encrypted. WEP for wifi was encryption, but cracking it was so trivial that for some years it was practical to crack yourself access to wifi wherever you were on a casual whim. Still, even if the encryption was very weak, wireless wifi sounds appealing to me, at least for my old trusty wired mouse. Somebody snooping on or spoofing my mouse seems like an academic threat.
    - gruez 3y ago
      > Somebody snooping on or spoofing my mouse seems like an academic threat. You're not concerned that anyone within a 100 ft radius of you can inject arbitrary keystrokes/mouse movements to your PC?
      - lupusreal 3y ago
        No, definitely not. The intersection of people who would think to do that, have the skill for it, and the inclination to view me personally as their target is probably zero.
        tombert 3y ago
        Not to mention that I don't think anyone but a few niche enthusiasts even have the hardware to do it even if they had the skills and inclination. Who's going to walk around with a 15 year old laptop brute-forcing wireless USB encryption, or find some obscure hub and do it on a modern laptop? I'm not going to say the likelihood is "zero", but I am going to say it's so close to zero that it's really not worth even considering.
        ElevenLathe 3y ago
        Might be possible to do with SDR rather than needing the original hardware. Not that this makes it super more likely.
      - toast0 3y ago
        Anyone within a 100 ft radius of my PC is in my house and could just come over and poke at the mouse.
        chrsig 3y ago
        That's somehow both a much less elaborate and significantly more invasive approach to pranking wfh coworkers.
hbossy 3y ago
Most USB devices either rely on the connection to provide power or are too clunky to move around, so having a wire doesn't really matter.
y04nn 3y ago
I recently found out that a manufacturer (TI, NXP, murata, infineon?) was demonstrating a USB2 live camera capture using a UWB (Ultra-Wide-Band) short range wireless transmission. But I can't found the source again.
hex4def6 3y ago
I remember actually testing that stuff out when it came out. I was working as an intern at Philips Semiconductors in their Wi-Fi chip division. Speaking of time has no meaning... :) I think there were a couple of consumer products that got released - Linksys and netgear perhaps? They consisted of a USB Hub + Dongle. They actually worked ok, but the speed would drop off quickly with distance. Across the room, and you'd be at 50% of the rated speed, at best. The technology was interesting. Basically they were transmitting over a whole slew of spectrum simultaneously (from like 2.5GHz to 5.5GHz), but they kept the transmit power low enough that it didn't exceed some FCC threshold.
monocasa 3y ago
Wireless USB was also the format used by the Xbox 360 controllers.
- themoonisachees 3y ago
  Huh. I had a 360 controller and a wireless adapter for my pc. It died a few years back though.
- taneq 3y ago
  Does that mean they’ll work with any wireless USB adapter? I have a 360 controller but haven’t been able to source a USB dongle to use it with my computer.
  - jaredhallen 3y ago
    Interesting that you can't find one. I got one a few years ago when I built a little emulator system out of a Pi. Works fine. I can't remember where I got it, though. I thought eBay, but I don't see it in my purchase history.
  - thesh4d0w 3y ago
    They're easy to find.... https://www.amazon.com/s?k=xbox+controller+dongle https://www.amazon.com/s?k=xbox+controller+dongle
    - monocasa 3y ago
      AFAICT those are almost all for later Xbox controllers which are built on Bluetooth.
      - thesh4d0w 3y ago
        No, they work on whatever their custom wireless protocol is. I use one all the time.
        3y ago
dmead 3y ago
I've been saying this should be a thing for decades. Not sure why I never heard of this.
jsxlite 3y ago
When Mac first took out the DVD drive, there was also a away to mount remote DVD drive. I guess the push was to get everyone on the network. So stuff like that just didn't take off.
rapjr9 3y ago
It was a very limited implementation of wireless USB. You could only plug in two USB devices and only particular devices worked, if I remember correctly. My suspicion is that the reason it went off the market was because it used UWB and the government put a lot of restrictions on its use so that it couldn't be repurposed for use in military applications. It's very difficult to intercept an encrypted UWB communication link, or to even know it is present. It essentially just looks like a slight raising of the noise floor across a wide band of frequencies. UWB was required to get the necessary bandwidth, doing USB across WiFi would probably cause timing errors in devices because it would be so slow (at least using 802.11b which was in wide use at the time). I think hardware makers really hated the idea also because a successful wireless USB system would allow sharing hardware between many computers instead of buying a device per computer (consumer NAS was expensive back then). It was also very expensive, about $400 I think, which was a lot at the time for something that had limited functionality. I remember thinking about buying one and decided it wasn't worth it.

codetrotter 3y ago

First time I heard about Wireless USB was just the other day, in a video looking at a luggable computer from 2006. https://youtu.be/OO5hYhdxIuk https://youtu.be/OO5hYhdxIuk Video is worth a watch although it also doesn’t give an answer for why Wireless USB actually disappeared. I was wondering after watching that video, if it could be due to security concerns? Like, is the Wireless USB protocol encrypted? And if so, does it use sufficiently strong encryption? I did find a document that talks a bit about Wireless USB encryption. https://cdn.teledynelecroy.com/files/appnotes/wireless_usb_encryption.pdf https://cdn.teledynelecroy.com/files/appnotes/wireless_usb_e...

tombert 3y ago
I actually saw that video, but I had heard of Wireless USB for awhile. My manager at my first job after dropping out of college the first time got it for his computer and he was super excited. At least according to Wikipedia, it was encrypted.
- lupusreal 3y ago
  There's "encrypted", and there's encrypted. WEP for wifi was encryption, but cracking it was so trivial that for some years it was practical to crack yourself access to wifi wherever you were on a casual whim. Still, even if the encryption was very weak, wireless wifi sounds appealing to me, at least for my old trusty wired mouse. Somebody snooping on or spoofing my mouse seems like an academic threat.
  - gruez 3y ago
    > Somebody snooping on or spoofing my mouse seems like an academic threat. You're not concerned that anyone within a 100 ft radius of you can inject arbitrary keystrokes/mouse movements to your PC?
    - lupusreal 3y ago
      No, definitely not. The intersection of people who would think to do that, have the skill for it, and the inclination to view me personally as their target is probably zero.
      - tombert 3y ago
        Not to mention that I don't think anyone but a few niche enthusiasts even have the hardware to do it even if they had the skills and inclination. Who's going to walk around with a 15 year old laptop brute-forcing wireless USB encryption, or find some obscure hub and do it on a modern laptop? I'm not going to say the likelihood is "zero", but I am going to say it's so close to zero that it's really not worth even considering.
        ElevenLathe 3y ago
        Might be possible to do with SDR rather than needing the original hardware. Not that this makes it super more likely.
    - toast0 3y ago
      Anyone within a 100 ft radius of my PC is in my house and could just come over and poke at the mouse.
      - chrsig 3y ago
        That's somehow both a much less elaborate and significantly more invasive approach to pranking wfh coworkers.

hbossy 3y ago

Most USB devices either rely on the connection to provide power or are too clunky to move around, so having a wire doesn't really matter.

y04nn 3y ago

I recently found out that a manufacturer (TI, NXP, murata, infineon?) was demonstrating a USB2 live camera capture using a UWB (Ultra-Wide-Band) short range wireless transmission. But I can't found the source again.

hex4def6 3y ago

I remember actually testing that stuff out when it came out. I was working as an intern at Philips Semiconductors in their Wi-Fi chip division. Speaking of time has no meaning... :) I think there were a couple of consumer products that got released - Linksys and netgear perhaps? They consisted of a USB Hub + Dongle. They actually worked ok, but the speed would drop off quickly with distance. Across the room, and you'd be at 50% of the rated speed, at best. The technology was interesting. Basically they were transmitting over a whole slew of spectrum simultaneously (from like 2.5GHz to 5.5GHz), but they kept the transmit power low enough that it didn't exceed some FCC threshold.

monocasa 3y ago

Wireless USB was also the format used by the Xbox 360 controllers.

themoonisachees 3y ago
Huh. I had a 360 controller and a wireless adapter for my pc. It died a few years back though.
taneq 3y ago
Does that mean they’ll work with any wireless USB adapter? I have a 360 controller but haven’t been able to source a USB dongle to use it with my computer.
- jaredhallen 3y ago
  Interesting that you can't find one. I got one a few years ago when I built a little emulator system out of a Pi. Works fine. I can't remember where I got it, though. I thought eBay, but I don't see it in my purchase history.
- thesh4d0w 3y ago
  They're easy to find.... https://www.amazon.com/s?k=xbox+controller+dongle https://www.amazon.com/s?k=xbox+controller+dongle
  - monocasa 3y ago
    AFAICT those are almost all for later Xbox controllers which are built on Bluetooth.
    - thesh4d0w 3y ago
      No, they work on whatever their custom wireless protocol is. I use one all the time.
      - 3y ago

dmead 3y ago

I've been saying this should be a thing for decades. Not sure why I never heard of this.

jsxlite 3y ago

When Mac first took out the DVD drive, there was also a away to mount remote DVD drive. I guess the push was to get everyone on the network. So stuff like that just didn't take off.

rapjr9 3y ago

It was a very limited implementation of wireless USB. You could only plug in two USB devices and only particular devices worked, if I remember correctly. My suspicion is that the reason it went off the market was because it used UWB and the government put a lot of restrictions on its use so that it couldn't be repurposed for use in military applications. It's very difficult to intercept an encrypted UWB communication link, or to even know it is present. It essentially just looks like a slight raising of the noise floor across a wide band of frequencies. UWB was required to get the necessary bandwidth, doing USB across WiFi would probably cause timing errors in devices because it would be so slow (at least using 802.11b which was in wide use at the time). I think hardware makers really hated the idea also because a successful wireless USB system would allow sharing hardware between many computers instead of buying a device per computer (consumer NAS was expensive back then). It was also very expensive, about $400 I think, which was a lot at the time for something that had limited functionality. I remember thinking about buying one and decided it wasn't worth it.