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[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
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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.
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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
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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
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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.
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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 OTG (hosting)

Sorry if this already have been discused.
I'm working for some time to make my O1 Usb host capable and yesturday i found this app on the market (sorry, can't post links cuz i'm new, you cand find it on the market with a simple search), USB Mode switcher of Xvision. Xvision i figured is a rom from alex163 (correct me if I'm wrong).
My question is if somebody tried this already. Because obviously i don't want to install that ROM. The USB Mode app is very simple, once launched you get 2 options: USB Host & USB Slave ( +3 lines of japanese description on both of them which i don't understand and didn't managed to translate ), once clicked on one of them it says: "Switching USB mode. Your device will reboot shortly, please wait!" (nothing happens). I want to know if somebody tried it, or can translate it to me.
If this will not work, next week i'll try with a Male microUSB B + Female USB A + one beagle joined to 4st and 5nd pad with a switch for boot kicking usb into host mode.
For those who don't know what is USB host mode
Your pc is a host, you phone is a client
result:connect a keyboard,mouse,memory stick,gamepad,etc. to your phone
(unfortunately the chipset of my phone is not capable of giving power to devices
Sorry for my bad english

[Q] USB Hosting

I bought a small micro - usb female adapter. When I plug it in, no matter what device i use it seems as those the xoom is not sending any power through it.
Ive tried
Camera
Charge Phone
usb mouse
usb wireless mouse
nothing is getting power.
Is there something i need to enable or do? Or has anyone esle has this issue? I am on 3.1....

You can not use a simple micro usb adapter cable, it has to be an OTG USB Host cable like the official Motorola camera connection kit that is now available. This is a bit expensive but readily available at your local Best Buy.
Take a look at some of the many posts on OTG cables and you can find info on cheaper cables that have been verified to work or on how to make your own.

you need a USB Host cable. Not just a regular sync cable. You can google for one or search the threads here where others have linked to confirmed working cables.

dang, thanks guys

I ordered one from ebay! hope it works

I have a question that applies here, I am on stock 3.1 Xoom WiFi/3G and just got my OTG cable, plug it in usb drive blinks like its working but where is it located on the Xoom? I've been looking around for it with Astro and File Explorer and I'm unable to find it... could someone tell me the path?

Techsniffer said:
I have a question that applies here, I am on stock 3.1 Xoom WiFi/3G and just got my OTG cable, plug it in usb drive blinks like its working but where is it located on the Xoom? I've been looking around for it with Astro and File Explorer and I'm unable to find it... could someone tell me the path?
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i believe stock 3.1 only supports MTP, hence no USB mass storage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Transfer_Protocol

I've heard many conflicting stories, I would like some sort of confirmation rather then speculation about what will/will not work with the Moto Xoom (Stock 3.1) Wifi/3g and an OTG cable because I've seen posts saying yes and no to USB, portable HD's etc etc. Can anyone even provide me with some informative links? Everything I've searched for has been less than informative.

So, stock 3.1 Xoom is an MTP device, that is true.
However, with latest series of Tiamat custom kernels by Bigrushdog (see Android Development section) the usbOTG has been enabled. If you have already rooted and installed the proper bootloader/Tiamat kernel, then in File Expert you will find the usbOTG folder on the root directory, same level as internal sdcard and data folders. If you go up a step in sdcard, you should see your external sdcard. Is this clear?

I have rooted, using the Tiamat 1.6, I have access to the sdcard now but I am still unable to access my usb drive (thumb drive). I have an OTG usb cable and when I go into the /OTGusb its empty. The drive blinks as if its initializing but then nothing.

On a side note, I have looked through both OTGusb folders, restarted the Xoom with the OTG and usb plugged in as suggested in another post and nothing I've tried has worked in locating the usb drive.

Techsniffer said:
I have rooted, using the Tiamat 1.6, I have access to the sdcard now but I am still unable to access my usb drive (thumb drive). I have an OTG usb cable and when I go into the /OTGusb its empty. The drive blinks as if its initializing but then nothing.
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I've found that there are two factors which may be in play here...
1. When I connect a flash drive it takes a bit of time for the directory structure to parse... It does show up in the OTGusb directory.
2. I've found that anything larger than 8GB (I've seen it stated in the forums as well) does not work (of if it does it takes forever and a day to become available)
Hope it helps...

I have same problem here. whenever I try to connect the USB with Motorola connector, it doesn't appear anything in otgusb

I'm not sure I am going to get what I want at this time with the OTG cable. My goal is to be able to use the OTG cable to connect a USB thumb drive to so I can carry additional movies, documents, etc without completely consuming the main Xoom storage.
Can the OTGusb cable support this? Do I need to wait for yet another update?
TIA

[Q] USB OTG with rooted ACE 2 ?

Hi!
I've rooted my Ace2 and tried to get USB OTG to work in order to connect external storage and to use DSLR Dashboard. USB Host diagnostics gives the following information (s. attachment). Neither external storage nor DSLR dashboard works. Is there a way to activate USB-OTG by editing config files? In that post I've read that the /etc/volt.fstab hat some lines commented out related to USB OTG.
EDIT: Replaced wrong screenshots

Any ideas? Wrong forum? Any suggestions?

You are using a specifically OTG cable to connect?
The cable must ground the ID pin on the USB connector of your ACE 2.
Many devices will work correctly (and automatically) when they receive the interrupt from the grounding.
See if you can get a USB keyboard to work first.

I used this (Amazon de Product B0068CEUAA) USB OTG cable.
I am not sure but in another post on xda I read that one need a new kernel where usb otg support is compiled in. I checked dmesg while connecting an usb drive, nothing happens there.
Has anyone with any USB OTG cable got this function to work on the Ace 2 (GT-I8160)?

[Q] Funny Phenomenon With OTG

After tons of tries, the OTG function still not working in the way I expected, at least simply plug the USB stick to the OTG wire won't work(USB mice and keyboards work though, even my Logitech wireless mouse with an unifying connector works), but I noticed something really funny - - with a hub installed between the USB sticks and my Q, most of the USB sticks works, but not every hub, it's the hub in poor quality and build with bounded chip that works, I got a Fullspeed hub which have a Etron chip soldered on it but it never worked with my Q. What's more, if I connect my Q to the low-speed-bonded-chip-hub and then to the Full-speed-Etron-hub and then to a USB disk,it works!
The only possible reason I can imagine is that the OTG function of Q doesn't support any devices running on Fullspeed, and it needed a converter like a low-speed hub.
Any solution to this? Cuz carrying a extra hub around seems dumb!
BTW after upgraded to JB, I need the app 'OTG Helper' to mount the usb storage devices (in 4.0.4 Q will mount it itself), but mice and keyboards work just fine without this tool. And even with this tool, Q can only detect a SD card reader,but can't mount it (says no device found) and format the card to NTFS formation won't work either.Neither dose the USB hard drive(pressing the mount button and after a while it says the OTG didn't response but the busy LED of the hard drive flashs at regular intervals).