Set your USB devices free! Belkin's latest addtion to the networking arena, is this USB hub that allows you to connect your peripherals to your home network. It needs to be near your router, but not your computer.
What we like about this hub is that it allows you to move your peripherals and media storage to a location that suits your apartment. Perhaps you could create a media closet with your printer, scanner, and external hard drive.
It won't be available until late July, and will retail for $129.99. For more information, check out Belkin's website.
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Comments (4)
The idea is pretty cool, but I'm still trying to figure out exactly how this thing works. Under system requirements (click the Tech Specs tab), it says something about needing an XP or Vista computer with "one available 32-bit slot" (PCI slot? PCMCIA slot?) and then goes on to say it's "compatable with all notebook computers equipped with WLAN or LAN". Huh?
I think someone at belkin screwed up the specs page.
All this device needs to operate is a network connection with your computer through your home network. The software it uses translates the data from the network so that the shared devices (plugged into the hub) look like they are plugged directly into your computer.
Baddd specs page. It took me a couple of read-throughs and I'm a software engineer.
I was more wondering about software requirements on the client end. Some of the descriptions make it sound like there is some client-side driver software involved: "Network USB Hub makes your computer think that printers and other devices on the network are directly attached to the computer."
That would probably preclude usage on Macs or Linux, which would be a shame.
Ondrej, you're right about needing client-side drivers/software. They're going to have Windows software at release time, while Mac support is coming in September. I'm not sure about Linux drivers, but I'd hope that they'd at least consider writing some software (or paying some open-source devs to write some).