OTG - what kind of cable, and how to use it?

Gadgets running Android OS have different advantages compared to other systems. All of them can be listed for a long time, but it is necessary to dwell on one of them. In particular, such devices support the connection of various gadgets to them via a normal USB interface. But this requires an "intermediary", which is an OTG cable. What is it, and how to use it? You will learn all this from this article.

OTG cable - what is it?

This cable is very short, at one end there is a usual USB-connector, and on the other - a plug MicroUSB. As you already knew, the microUSB plug is inserted into the smartphone, and you can already connect something to the USB-connector .

Let's figure out what can be connected to the phone via an OTG cable. What is it, we have already figured out, now another question - what is it for?

Plug the USB flash drive

Connecting a flash drive is the easiest way to use an OTG cable. What does this give? At least from the phone you can listen to music that is recorded on a regular flash drive. You can also watch movies from the flash drive. If the phone does not have enough memory for the movie, then write it to the flash drive and look at your gadget through the OTG cable.

It is worth noting that in most cases, you can connect a USB flash drive through this cable, but there may be problems. It all depends on the firmware that is installed on the phone. For example, on Nexus smartphones it's so difficult to set up an OTG cable, which means installing third-party programs. You can also solve this problem by installing custom firmware, but you have to tinker in any case.

Card Reader

If the phone recognizes a USB flash drive, it will most likely be able to recognize the card reader with the SD card inside. In most cases, the phone sees a memory card inserted in the card reader. Thus, on the smartphone, you can edit the contents of SD-cards using the OTG-cable. That it can be useful in any situation, perhaps, is obvious.

External hard drive

A disk with a memory of 500-700 GB can also be connected to the phone. On smartphones so far there can not be that much memory, but with an external drive - quite. And this requires only a short OTG cable. What does this give the user? As in the case of a flash drive, the phone will be able to watch full-length movies, even in FullHD-quality. The smartphone probably would not have enough memory for large tapes, but on the disk it will be enough.

However, there are often errors when connecting a hard drive to USB OTG. What this happens is known to many users. Therefore, there is even an application USB OTG Helper, which itself finds the mounted disk and mounts it. After the connection, it becomes available in the file manager. But even this program does not always save. For example, a Seagate hard drive with 4 GB of memory is not even displayed even with this program. It is possible that the disk just does not have enough power to the smartphone.

Mouse

Surprisingly, if you connect a mouse to the smartphone through this cable, the cursor will appear on the screen and it will react to all mouse movements. As on the computer, all programs and icons will be opened with a double click. Of course, there is no practical use of using the mouse on the smartphone, but it's worth trying for the sake of an experiment. Someone else doubts that USB OTG is cool?

Keyboard

Contrary to the popular belief that tablets and phones were created to consume content, and not to create it, on a tablet or smartphone, you can print text using the keyboard. It connects through the OTG-cable, and any Android-device it perfectly recognizes. Now the text is much more convenient to write, because a virtual keyboard is a complete nonsense, which is suitable for social networks, but not for writing texts.

Gamepad

There are specialized solutions for playing on smartphones, but through the cable you can connect a full controller for games. Will it be possible to play with it? Completely! On Android-devices you can even connect a gamepad.

USB hub

By connecting a USB hub, you can create a workstation with a mouse and keyboard from the phone. In addition, you can connect speakers. However, here there are no guarantees that all connected devices will function fully, although it's worth trying.

Other

Most modern speakers are connected to the computer's USB port for power and to a 3.5 mm jack. At the same time, the power of the speakers from the mobile USB-port is enough. Also, many cool headphones are connected not through the "minijack", but directly via USB. It's a shame when cool "ears" can not be used together with a smartphone. But with OTG-cable it becomes possible.

Connecting a printer is really a useful thing for which it is worth having such a cable. It is very convenient to print on the printer documents that are stored on the smartphone. But even more convenient to print photos. Of course, it is better for the printer to be connected to a Wi-Fi network, but if it does not have such functionality, then it's possible to completely cope with the OTG cable. What is it, you now know.

Another option that is suitable for tablets without 3G / 4G modems. It's about connecting a modem that will provide access to the 3G / 4G network. Not all tablets have support for these standards, and if they are, then such models are more expensive. You can save a little money if you buy a modification of the gadget without the support of a third or fourth generation wireless network and use a USB modem that accidentally lapsed into your home. With OTG-cable it became possible, and the tablet perfectly recognizes it. But there is a nuance: you can connect the modem only with superuser rights and with the help of certain programs. In most cases, the PPP Widget 2 application helps.

You can continue to experiment for a long time, but the main thing is that you understand what this cable represents.