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0 pointsxondono2d ago0 comments

I’ve been looking for a good solution for doing the exact opposite, being able to connect stuff through USB in my bench, and see them pop up in my office desktop as if they were usb devices.

The closest I’ve gotten is using a raspberry pi in the workbench, but for some weird devices that’s sometimes not good enough.

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5 comments · 4 top-level

ianburrell2d ago· 1 in thread

There USB over IP. I think Linux supports it. It could be possible to have Pico implementation, use WiFi like this, and connect to computer or another dongle.

byb1d ago

Author here: I have wanted to make a wireless USB mouse and keyboard switch out of RPI Pico Ws for a long time. I would go a layer deeper than USB/IP, because I want to cache the USB handshake to keep the connection enumerated on multiple systems without dropping.

EvanAnderson2d ago

In a Windows world I've used the hell out of these devices for licensing dongles on Windows virtual machines: https://www.silextechnology.com/connectivity-solutions/devic...

They're much cheaper than the competing devices from Digi and they've been bulletproof for me. I've got some out there running >10 years.

I've even done stupid stuff like hung a USB Ethernet adapter off of one and made it a NIC on my local PC to talk to another of the same unit hanging off that USB NIC (just to be cheeky-- not for actual use). Stacking things on top of other things is fun.

My only complaint is I wish they did PoE. I use a cheap PoE splitter for that but it would be nice not to have to do that.

anotherpaulg2d ago

If you have CAT5/6 between the locations, USB-over-CAT5/6 adapters are inexpensive and work quite well. I've used OREI's successfully over >60m. But there are many options, with varying limits on cable length.

https://www.orei.com/products/usb-over-ethernet-extender-upt...

I've used USB over Network in the past, worked well on Linux

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