Tripp Lite 20M USB 3.0 Active Super speed Extension Repeater Cable USB-A M/F (U330-20M)

Trying to give a product like this a fair shake at a decent and informative review is problematic at best for reasons I hope I can make clear with a little background context. If it's TL;DR for you, remember you don't HAVE to read it.The whole "world" of USB is a "kinda/sorta" affair in the best of circumstances. USB only exists as a collection of abstract specifications that have evolved along with the various versions of it over time. The idea is that engineers tuck the specifications under their arms, make a selection of which USB chipset to use, and then trundle off to create products that are all going to magically interoperate with each other just by plugging them in. Any consumer reading the functional capabilities supposedly PROMISED by USB is going to run off into the night all overinflated with optimism about the success they're going to experience with their functionally magic USB devices only to be abruptly crushed by total operational failure.The sad truth is that USB is riddled with a collection of debilitating characteristics the combined effect of which personally gives me the sense of it being miraculous that these gadgets work at all. Just the fact that you have vast collections of engineers, each with his own views and "interpretations" of innumerable specification points, all going off on their own with no opportunity to meet and discuss implementation details and all with an expectation that all of these devices and cables and computers will all seamlessly interoperate with each other without fail, nevermind the collection of specification requirements that individually and collectively scream "LANDMINE!" all by themselves, make it pretty clear that disaster MUST be the inevitable outcome.Just ONE of the scores of "tetchy" characteristics of USB is that it is intensely timing sensitive. Interestingly on this point, and especially relevant to this review, is the fact that USB cable length intrinsically injects timing influences into any digital communication.The USB 2.0 specification maximum cable length is, as I recall, 16.4 feet. Even more weirdly stated, the USB 3.0 specification doesn't specify a maximum cable length but rather states that all cables have to meet certain electrical characteristics. If you happen to be using copper cabling at AWG 26 gauge, as a completely arbitrary example, the maximum cable length would be somewhere around 9.8 feet, which is even less than the theoretical maximum length of a USB 2.0 cable.And then we come to this active USB extension cable, the subject of this review, whose very existence overtly flies in the face of the USB specifications as a fundamental element of its very existence and the very functionality it's supposed to provide. Wow. On the face of it I have to assume that some suspicious and dicey technological black magic is being layered right on top of the traditional USB slimy goop… And we're optimistic about how all this is going to turn out, are we?Truthfully, when you slap your money down on the sales counter and trundle on home with this cable under your arm, your expectation regarding how successful you're going to be in making use of it should vary from 100% probable success all the way down to "not a snowball's chance in hell" and literally everywhere along the spectrum in between; it all depends what you're planning to try to do with it. If it doesn't work the way you planned it, are you going to have the presence of mind to delicately parse out the fine nuances of WHY your little project failed? With USB in general, the possible culprits for failure run the gamut FROM it being your own fault because your expectations were wildly out of alignment with reality TO you have stepped in one of the steaming little curls of shortcomings intrinsic to USB TO yes, it was actually the cable's fault. Or it could be that you failed because of SEVERAL of these elements conspired against you all at once.Having run collections of experiments with this particular cable (and with other cables within its same market space), it's my opinion that this cable works surprisingly well, all things considered (and that's a very important proviso…) and assuming you make a concerted effort to keep your expectations/usages in line with reality.Your best bet for success is to buy half a dozen of these cables and plug them all directly into your computer in their own port so that each and every device that you want to plug in remotely has one of these cables all to itself. No intervening hubs anywhere, no extension cords, and no other nonsense. If you want working devices with as much surety as possible, do this. The further you deviate from this the more you slide along the spectrum from plug-and-play to plug-and-folderol.You must also bear firmly in mind that in the world of USB there are two devices that are INHERENTLY EVIL, in all capital letters and dripping blood. That would be hubs and high-speed storage devices (like discs and thumb drives) and suchlike. Genuinely, the quality of hubs that you can buy on the market vary in quality from execrable to quite excellent and everything in between. Some of them are so bad you'd have better luck plugging a Polish sausage into your USB cable. High-speed storage devices for their part also vary all over the place in terms of their interoperability and quality. There is heavy downward pressure on USB peripherals to be as cheap as possible to the point where some of them are so poorly made that they won't even function well in an ideal USB environment, let alone one that is playing loosey-goosey with the specifications and trying to compensate for it like this cable does. Anecdotally, I've had very good luck with Western Digital Elements USB hard drives as long as there is nothing between the computer and the drive except this cable.If you simply MUST use a hub, ONLY use a powered hub that is very reputable, has lots and lots of very positive reviews and is very recent in build. No un-powered hubs EVER. If your set up is just this cable plugged directly into your computer with a well powered hub at the remote end, you'll probably see about 100% success PROVIDED the devices you're plugging into the hub are various low-bandwidth devices like keyboards and mice and other low-demand items. Success with mass storage devices like thumb drives and hard drives will be very iffy and I would frankly never trust it plugged into a hub at the remote end. Your best chance will be with best quality thumb drives and hard drives and making small file accesses spread out intermittently. I'm usually safe moving about 1.5 gigs at once in either multiple files or one large file, but if you attempt more sustained, high throughput transfers than that then almost certainly somewhere along the way the transfer will trip, the drive will get disconnected (unmounted from the file system) and maybe the file system on the drive corrupted. You should also make a point of setting USB drives of any type to the safe-to-remove setting; this will make file movements unbuffered and therefore slower but will increase safety if the transfer detonates in your face. If your transfer does detonate, be sure and remount the device and go back and delete any files on the target device that were part of the transfer; they are possibly corrupted and you won't know until it's too late.My personal set up is: I used two of these cables; one is plugged into a high-powered and reputable, reliable hub for the collection of USB peripherals I use EXCEPT any mass storage devices. The other cable is standalone so that I can plug mass storage devices into their own cable, one at a time, with a direct line to the computer. Even with this, lower quality, five-for-a-dollar USB thumb drives habitually fail on larger sustained transfers. For webcams, the more high-resolution and the higher the frame rate of webcams the greater the likelihood it won't work with this cable.In short, adjust yourself to USB's genetically infused zits and warts and you'll see good success with this cable. Sail out into dangerous seas and thar be monsters. Ye have been warned.

Finding functional and durable computer accessories for sensitive applications is pretty tough with all of the junk products out there. This wasn't the first active USB extender that we purchased for this project, but it was the first one that was well-engineered and manufactured and which worked to specification. We couldn't be happier. It's working like a charm. Thanks, Tripp Lite. I'll remember you in the future!We're using this for extended VR applications, which is very demanding, and it works perfectly with no delay or problems and fits nicely with the rest of the wire harness.

I needed an extension cable for my Brio camera. Bought just a regular one and it was crap. After talking to a few people who said I needed an active repeater, I shopped around and decided on this one. I was nervous as the price just seemed too good to be true.IT WORKS PERFECT! I have no issues, no static, NOTHING but a clear picture! Would surely buy more if needed!

I’ve owned several of these cables and this is the best one! Strong, solid quality and construction at a great price. I had used the brand tether tools and the cable was not nearly as well made as this one and it cost like $50. No cheap plastic on this one. I use it to connect my camera to my laptop for live view tethered shooting in Lightroom. I am so happy with this product! Thank you!

This is capable of extending the Xbox One Kinect without issue. I was so happy that it worked, because Microsoft was very unhelpful when I called them for advice about how to extend it. It's a shame they never gave consideration for folks that have their Xbox One in an AV cabinet apart from their wall-mounted TV. You can buy this and know it is going to work. It is a bit more expensive than I would like, but for the peace of mind of knowing you don't have to return it, I think it is worth it. I bought several other cables first, and failed miserably.

Works with Logitech HD Webcam C270 without additional power supply, where other cables have failed.The female end is rather large as is the repeater located at approximately 15' from the female end.Is that important information? It is if you need to run the cable in a conduit or similar restriction.

I seemed like it was going to work. The 50ft cable connected through my USB hub. I even got a brief connection after daisy chaining two of them. That dropped off after a few seconds. But after leaving the 50ft cable going for a while, the signal dropped. This was when it was plugged into a powered hub which, I was told, would work.

I ordered two of these cables, and my experience was rather frustrating. I bought these to move my computer into a separate room from my peripherals.My first complaint, THERE IS NO DC JACK, so I wasted 10 bucks on a couple of power supplies. THIS IS NOT AN ACTIVE CABLE. Second of all, one of the cables I received didn't work. I read that sometimes plugging it into a different USB port worked, but nope.FORTUNATELY the cable that does work turned out to be all I needed. One was used for powering a USB bus for my peripherals, and the other I intended to plug into my DAC (I wanted the best signal possible since I'm recording music). Since one was a dud, I just plugged my DAC into the bus and it worked, so there is a silver lining to this bad experience.I hope that my experience is rare and duds are uncommon, and that my working cable will continue to work for a reasonable amount of time. I will update this review once I've returned/replaced the bad cable.Most importantly, CHANGE THE DESCRIPTION THAT SAYS THERE'S A DC PLUG OPTIONAL.

Compré éste extensor de USB 3.0 para usarlo con mis lentes de VR (Acer WMR y Oculus Rift S) y extender su uso a 15 metros, no tuve ningún problema con el, cumple perfectamente su función. Solo recuerden comprar un adaptador de corriente a 5V 2A con Conector 1.35mm x 3.5mm para usarlo cuando necesitan darle poder a equipos por el cable USB como en mi caso.Lo único negativo es su precio, es el más caro entre los que se encuentran en Amazon México.El kit completo de 15 metros (Por si alguien le interesa el VR) fue de:-Repetidor HDMI Amazon Basics (único que funcionó)-Cable HDMI activo marca Monoprice modelo 109172-Cable USB 3.0 activo marca Tripp Lite modelo U330-15M.-Adaptador de corriente UGREEN de 5V 2A con Conector 1.35mm x 3.5mm

Quite a heavy duty make and it requires power so beware. Power adapter sold separately.

I was trying to use my 4K capture card between my PC and my XBox Series X. The capture card failed to operate while using this cable even when plugged in at the far end with the power adapter.The setup DID work when I used an HDMI extension instead and just used a short USB 3.0 cable to connect to my PC. So the fault undoubtedly lies in this cable NOT doing what it claims it can do.

I'm using this to extend the signal of my HTC Vive from my PC room down to my living room.I run the cables through my wall and crawl space to minimize clutter.I've received no data loss, and I can run the Camera on my Vive at it's full 60hz while playing demanding titles and zero data loss!Great deal!(Note: there are TWO repeaters on this cable. If you want to ensure no data loss you will need the DC power on the female end of the cable.)

Took a bit more of a beating that it was probably designed for-- I had to ram it and drag it through various walls, bits of insulation, and slatted chunks of plaster in a thirties-era bungalow-- and was worried I might have gummed up the connections or bent a pin. But the connection is great (no need to used an external power supply), and it's a joy to be able to run my main machine from different rooms, instead of relying on the piece-of-crap Lenovo laptop I've had to use for portability up to now.