Micro USB OTG cables

trollcast

I'm looking at getting one of these for my tablet but would a female to female USB adapter on the end of the USB lead that came with my tablet work the same?

Thanks

Greg Bernhardt

From what I've read you do indeed need the OTG cable. It is a standard.

AlephZero

Yup, you need the OTG cable.

In the beginning when things were simple, every USB device was built either as a "master" or a "slave" device, depending on what it did. For eaxmple a desktop computer would be a "master", but a memory stick or a USB printer would be a "slave".

A network of USB devices only works properly if there is exactly one "master" device.

That simple "master/slave" idea doesn't work with devices like tablets, which might sometimes need to function as a master and sometimes as a slave.

The OTG cable fixes the problem by by making one end of the cable look like the master device and the other end like a slave, independent of what devices the cable is plugged into. In other words, you can connect "anything to anything" and it "just works."