[Q] Can the XOOM act as a USB Host?

[masrinz]

Hi, can anyone who owns a XOOM pls let me know if you can plug in:

1) a USB flash drive to the XOOM, and view and open files on the drive?
2) an external hard drive and view and access files from your XOOM

Many thanks

 

[muyoso]

Hi, can anyone who owns a XOOM pls let me know if you can plug in:

1) a USB flash drive to the XOOM, and view and open files on the drive?
2) an external hard drive and view and access files from your XOOM

Many thanks

Does the Xoom have a USB port? Pretty sure it only has MicroUSB. I guess they do have microusb flash drives not that I look.

 

[masrinz]

Hi. Yup its only got micro USB, but I guess you could use the included adapter cable to plug in a flash drive.... we don't have the XOOM here yet, but the functionality of being able to connect a flash drive, move files e.g. PDF or .doc and then view them is important to me.

 

[bwcorvus]

Hi. Yup its only got micro USB, but I guess you could use the included adapter cable to plug in a flash drive.... we don't have the XOOM here yet, but the functionality of being able to connect a flash drive, move files e.g. PDF or .doc and then view them is important to me.

As of today what you want is not avab. The cable it comes with doesn't take input. They do have a cable online that will do this one day, but doesn't do it yet.

Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk

 

[gigglebox]

The cable that Motorola "will" be selling is a micro-usb to standard usb (female) adapter. I'll look around for the sources, but I know that I saw this detailed in a few videos from Motorola techs and at least one reviewer site.

The cable is not just a straight conversion of form factor, but has the necessary pinout to instruct the Xoom to jump into usb host mode. From the reports that I saw, it would absolutely provide the ability to plug usb drives, cameras and other accessories into the xoom for direct access. In fact, the reviewer that I saw, made a comment that they had verified the functionality by plugging in a couple usb keyboards... supposedly worked like a champ.

Lame that we need a "special" adapter, but I can imagine that if it is just a pinout issue, it may be possible for the good folks here at XDA to craft a software solution that would allow us to bypass the motorola-branded cable... It would have been WAY cooler if it was a standard usb port, like some of the other tablets on the horizon.

 

[masrinz]

Thanks. They mention in many reviews and I think Google mentioned it too that you can attach a mouse or keyboard by cable (I know about Bluetooth) which suggests that it should support input, so is it just a hardware interface thing or an actual firmware OS/software issue?


Edit: thanks for the great response gigglebox.... we posted simultaneously

 

[masrinz]

Is this it?

http://www.clove.co.uk/motorola-xoom-camera-connection-kit

 

[gigglebox]

Is this it?

http://www.clove.co.uk/motorola-xoom-camera-connection-kit

Visually, yeah. Looks like they took it off their site for some reason. In fact the only times that I saw this on Moto's site, was in the day or 2 leading up to the launch... when typing in xoom into the search bar on their landing page, it would spit out a drop-down menu listing the Camera Connection Kit (by name and pic).

I dont like the fact that they call it a "camera connection", but they werent pulling any punches about it serving as a host. They did note that the external storage (thumbdrives, etc) were not yet supported, but that they would be. The cameras and (according to them) keyboards were working now.

 

[Droid4All]

I believe it is possible but right now it is a software limitation.

More info here: https://supportforums.motorola.com/message/329075

 

[masrinz]

I believe it is possible but right now it is a software limitation.

More info here: https://supportforums.motorola.com/message/329075

Agreed, the engineer from moto definitely says the hardware should accept any usb 2.0 or higher device, but it's a software issue. Toshiba have a straight usb and a micro usb port on their device so hopefully they're working on this.

We don't have the XOOM here yet, but hopefully by the time it becomes available (approx April) we might have the option of the Toshiba as well.

 

[AspenMan]

I use this USB host cable and it works great. Have tested it with my 750gb Oyen and 320gb WD Passport external HDD's, several usb flash drives (8-16gb), San disk USB memory card reader, and a USB keyboard.

For those having issues getting their Xoom to recognize USB storage devices here's what I've got and did to get it to work: I flashed my XOOM (3.1) to the 2.6.36.4 Tiamat_Xoom-v1.4.4-Full_Throttle Kernel and was unable to get the USBMount to recognize drives or storage at first. I installed USB Mass Storage Watcher from the market (it's free) and it works awesome! Can mount any storage I want (NTFS, FAT16/32, HFS, HFS+, EXT2, ETX3, EXT4) with any capacity. I think this app will work with any rooted Xoom (or other devices). Under my Kernel my USB host is located under/usbOTG.

Hope this helps.

 

[irekd]

FYI ... I've checked it and stock ROM Xoom without root is able to operate standard PC keyboard/mouse using basic one-to-one usb->microusb adapter (without any electronics onboard).
Probably with proper dual socket usb adapter (also without electronics onboard) it would be possible to connect both keyboard and mouse at once.

 

[yosterwp]

FYI ... I've checked it and stock ROM Xoom without root is able to operate standard PC keyboard/mouse using basic one-to-one usb->microusb adapter (without any electronics onboard).
Probably with proper dual socket usb adapter (also without electronics onboard) it would be possible to connect both keyboard and mouse at once.

if you have a Logitech keyboard and mouse that connect by the unifying receiver,or mostly any keyboard+mouse combo that connects by one receiver, then only a standard OTG cable should work.