Micro USB OTG Cable: Can I Use a Female-to-Female Adapter?

[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."