[Q] android tablet to use as point of sale - General Questions and Answers

Hi. At the company I work for, we are looking for a tablet pc to use as point of sale on small stores. The idea is to stop using desktop pcs, and use tablets instead.
The exact requirement is a tablet that is:
1. Cheap (US$ 500 max)
2. Has USB Host ports or USB OTG. USB accesories to be connected include keyboard, USB to Serial, USB to Parallel converter, or USB Dot Matrix Ticket printer(Epson TMU), and a USB Wired network adapter.
3. If possible, one that has Wired network conectivity(RJ-45)
4. Has unlockable bootloader. It's best if it's provided by the manufacturer, but as long as it works, it's okay.
5. Tha manufacturer provides kernel source code.
Other conectivity options, such as WiFi or 3G really don't matter, as those will be disabled, because they are not needed.
The tablet would go inside a specially designed case, together with the ticket printer, the power adapters for both, and maybe the keyboard.
Any suggestions? Thanks in advance

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Ethernet connection via mini-usb?

Ok so I do a fair bit of IT support work these days and thought about all the nice little possibilities it would open up if I could connect my Touch Pro to the network or other devices directly via ethernet.
If you can get USB Network dongles these days, I don't see why you can't have a mini-usb one, but I don't see many around. Does anyone know of a product like this?
If there isn't one, perhaps you could ues a regular USB Network stick/dongle, and use a USB to mini-usb converter. Then I guess it would be a case of someone making a driver or app, right?
Any solutions or suggestions appreciated.
Thanks.
Have the same problem.
Lately I was wondering about the same thing. I've found some USB to RJ45 converters, and was wondering about drivers or app, have you finger something out?
"You care incorrect, sir." -Ed McMann
Take a good look at any USB cable: the two ends are different. One end is for a USB Host (desktopPC/Laptop/Mac). The other end is for a USB **Device** (thumb drive, wireless network dongle, **YOUR PHONE**). Trying to plug two USB *Devices* together would be like trying to plug two USB thumbdrives together to swap files... or more acutately, pluging a USB Network dongle to your thumbdrive to access it over teh internets. ooh, it would be sweet if it were possible.
well that's a bummer. I was thinking that the phone can act as a host when you use the internet connection sharing....
yeah, different kind of host. Actually trying to get that second type of host working myself (Internet Sharing): The USB connection is the bad guy here, by design it's either host or device.
Now you migth find *bluetooth* RJ45 device, but why not just buy a wireless router for your network and use your Fuze's Wifi capabilities? If you plugged a USB Wifi dongle into your desktop, that should be enough to use your fuze's wifi to connect... activsync style. don't ask me how to use it via Internet Sharing, still trying that.

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

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
masrinz said:
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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
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.
masrinz said:
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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
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.
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
Is this it?
http://www.clove.co.uk/motorola-xoom-camera-connection-kit
masrinz said:
Is this it?
http://www.clove.co.uk/motorola-xoom-camera-connection-kit
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
I believe it is possible but right now it is a software limitation.
More info here: https://supportforums.motorola.com/message/329075
Droid4All said:
I believe it is possible but right now it is a software limitation.
More info here: https://supportforums.motorola.com/message/329075
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
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.
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.
irekd said:
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.

Usb-host

Sorry 4 the prev thread in wrong section .. then .. One S ( stock rom or another custom rom - with or without Sense ) supporta the usb-host mode ?
I am reasonably sure that out of the box, on stock ROM it does not support the ability to act as an USB host. Additionally, the microUSB on the phone is an USB slave socket, so it would need an adapter to connect a USB slave device to it anyways. (At least I have not yet seen a native USB-Host device with a microUSB socket.)
I am pretty certain it can be hacked into a custom ROM or application, however there are limitations to this. Commonly a device that is designed as USB slave (like the One S) will not be able to power devices through the USB port as regular USB hosts have to.
So IMO, in order to get it to work as an USB host you would need an adapter to connect the devices properly, a modified firmware or specialized app AND a way to externally power the USB slave you want to connect to the One S acting as USB host. The external power might a portable USB charger battery (like the Gumpack) or an Y-cable which is connected to a "real" USB-Host device just for the power (or a car/wall USB charger).
So, theoretically it would be possible, but not very practical. To the best of my knowledge it has not been done in the past because there was no need to. This however might actually change with the current trend towards non-expandable memory on newer phones... if demand rises I bet manufacturers would come up with solutions. Think small USB storage sticks with regular USB plug on one side for use on Notebook/Desktop and a microUSB plug on the other which contain a tiny battery (think Bluetooth headset size) to power the stick while attached to the phone and are charged while connected to a real USB Host port which is designed to deliver juice.
Further reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Serial_Bus#Connector_types

Turn Phone into USB Keyboard without low level kernel modifications.

Hello folks,
I am stuck and I hope you guys can help me out with a tip or two.
What I am trying to do is:
1) Connect my smartphone to a desktop through a USB cable (or OTG cable or anything that will do the job) and make the desktop think that a usb keyboard was connected to it and not a smartphone (hence no need for drivers installation).
2) After usb cable connection, the smartphone will be able to send keystrokes to the desktop.
Points of consideration:
* The desktop has no bluetooth nor wireless connections and nothing can be installed in it.
* installing an app (downloaded from store) into the smartphone is possible, but with no kernel modifications or root, I mean out of the box solution.
From reading those two great links:
[1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions...ogram-android-to-act-as-physical-usb-keyboard
[2] http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1871281
It appears my best option is to use a USB cable with a "special hardware level converter " and attache it both to the desktop and smartphone. It will tell the desktop it is a USB keyboard and receive keystrokes from the smartphone, before forwarding them to the desktop.
My question is:
Does such cable exist?
If yes, where can I find it?
If not, is there a company that can help make it?
Thanks guys, Mozart

The state of desktop mode over USB-C - What are the current options?

I bought a DELL USB-C monitor (P2720DC) which, when connected to a supporting phone (tested with Huawei [don't know the model, but flagship] and with Galaxy S20) serves as a perfect desktop station.
The reason it's so good is because:
1. All the peripherals are connected to the monitor's USB hub
2. USB PD works (the phone is being charged at the same time)
3. Display over USB-C works perfectly
so with one cable, the phone gets and sends everything, except for network, in my monitor.
I found that in order for this to work two things are required:
1. Phone software support
2. USB *3* (to my surprise, most phones with USB-C have USB 2, including my Pocophone)
I couldn't believe there is no non-flagship option which can be used in this manner as a desktop, so I searched a lot and couldn't find one.
Before I give up, I thought I'd ask here: Did I miss anything? Is this still a flagship-only feature?
Thank you!

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