Outré USB Gadgets

PreacherTom writes, "We've all connected a myriad of useful things to USB ports: flash drives, printers, webcams. How about a vacuum cleaner? Pair of heated gloves? Anti-cubicle missile system? Joseph Pisani offers a listing of some of the most creative USB-controlled gadgets available, and includes a slide show of the most popular."

This stupid thing too.

[sporkme]

My most sincere apologies to Fiftythree.org, but when I read about plugging unconventional things into the computer, this classic came to mind. Note: the USBKiller is not listed. Scatter a few of these outside the back door of your local bank.

The EtherKiller and friends: http://www.fiftythree.org/etherkiller/ [fiftythree.org]
The Google cache [64.233.167.104]

Or this stupid thing [thinkgeek.com] is more in line with the aim of the article.

Really useful? Laptop lights!

[The Bungi]

Remember when USB started to go mainstream? After reading for a while about the 'glut' of 'wonderful devices' that would come down on the market and then hearing about USB-powered Tamagotchi (or some such stupidity) I pretty much gave up on the idea... until the laptop light. The USB-powered laptop light. Hell hath no fury compared to my reaching for my wallet to get one of these things at CompUSA the first time I saw them.

If USB gives us nothing more in the way of alternative devices and gadgets, I will consider it a victory anyway =)

Re:USB

[BadAnalogyGuy]

I got a USB fan that has a software-controlled speed setting. It's pretty useless outside an air-conditioned room, but it's mostly around for novelty's sake. I hate when people just yank the cord out without right-click removing it from the device list. It leaves the fan in an unstable state and blue screens Windows when I plug it back in.

USB power is cool

[Bombcar]

I wish more devices used USB power to charge, then I wouldn't have to carry as many different power adapters around.

USB Powered != USB Gadget

[Zaffle]

I'm sick of every man and his dog working out that their product can run from 5v dc, and therefore sticking a usb port on it, and saying its now able to connect to your computer!

Imagine if a photocopier did this. Oh no, you can't *print* to it. It just runs off USB power, but because the specification limits a single USB port to 200mA, we have provided a "conveniant" multiheaded usb plug (count them, 4 usb plugs).

No no no no no no

There are some really neat ICs out there that allow you to build a device thats USB controlled, eg the PC can send a signal down the wire (and vice versa) and you can make the device do something. USB pencil sharpers are not a great category for this. USB weather stations are.

Heck, I've always wanted to build a USB *controlled* fan. One that you can change the direction and speed via the USB port.

A really big useful-ness of the USB devices is that you can now replace almost any part of your PC. USB serial, USB parallel, USB sound, USB network. Case-in-point, my network took a power surge via the network/switch. Best I can tell, the server took the main charge, probably though the power supply, and happily diverted it through the ethernet port, which the switch passed on to each device connect. Then end result is the network component on every device on the network is fried. The simple answer, especially for my beauitful geeked-out slimline MythTV box is a USB network. (No room for any more PCI cards)

Re:USB controlled or USB powered?

[sporkme]

Well, this qualifies. DIY USB phone handset [instructables.com]
The guy combined a USB skype/gaming headset and an older style telephone handset for something that actually seems somewhat practical compared to a USB aquarium.

He missed the best one...

[Anonymous Coward]

The usb big red button. [reghardware.co.uk]

The appeal of USB is the power

[EmbeddedJanitor]

I agree with parent that anything that just steal USB isn't really a USB device.

However it is worth noting that it is the power that really makes USB different from other interfaces (sure you can steal a few mA from RS232). I quite often use USB to power small electronic circuits (development boards etc) instead of a wallwart or a bench power supply, even if they are using some other connectivity.

Re:USB power is cool

[ajs318]

I think you'll find that the phone's main processor is controlling the switched-mode power supply for battery charging. Instead of a comparator, a few resistors and a hefty transistor, they use an ADC and some spare CPU cycles to operate said hefty transistor. The idea is that as soon as there's enough voltage just to power the processor at all, it can deal with the whole business of interrupting and restarting the charging current to the supply capacitor {which is how a conventional SMPS regulates its voltage}. I first observed something like this about 7 years ago in a piece of vehicle electronics, containing a microprocessor. It used some kind of charge pump {i.e. where capacitors are alternately charged in parallel then discharged in series} to generate a higher supply voltage than the battery, to feed an op-amp amplifying the voltage drop across a resistance of a few milliohms to monitor current {no op-amp can amplify signals which are hard up against either supply rail, so you always need a supply just out of range. Easy to obtain in a mains appliance, harder in a battery appliance}. The transistors, diodes and capacitors were obvious, but damned if I could find the oscillator that ran it. Turned out it was a pin on the processor .....

My mobile is a Sony Ericsson, bought before Sony did that scandalous rootkit thing {but then I'm immune to that anyway, not having any Windows PCs}.

Some video of multiple-launch systems in action

[PreacherTom]

Some video of what one can do with a number of launch vehicles: http://scott.weston.id.au/software/pymissile-20060 126/ [weston.id.au] Gotta love technology in action.