Wireless USB Autopsy

It might seem strange to people like us, but normal people hate wires. Really hate wires. A lot. So it makes sense that with so many wireless technologies, there should …read more

May 8, 2025 - 01:35

It might seem strange to people like us, but normal people hate wires. Really hate wires. A lot. So it makes sense that with so many wireless technologies, there should be a way to do USB over wireless. There is, but it really hasn’t caught on outside of a few small pockets. [Cameron Kaiser] wants to share why he thinks the technology never went anywhere.

Wireless USB makes sense. We have high-speed wireless networking. Bluetooth doesn’t handle that kind of speed, but forms a workable wireless network. In the background, of course, would be competing standards.

Texas Instruments and Intel wanted to use multiband orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (MB-OFDM) to carry data using a large number of subcarriers. Motorola (later Freescale), HP, and others were backing the competing direct sequence ultra-wideband or DS-UWB. Attempts to come up with a common system degenerated.

This led to two systems W-USB (later CF-USB) and CW-USB. CF-USB looked just like regular USB to the computer and software. It was essentially a hub that had wireless connections. CW-USB, on the other hand, had cool special features, but required changes at the driver and operating system level.

Check out the post to see a bewildering array of orphaned and incompatible products that just never caught on. As [Cameron] points out, WiFi and Bluetooth have improved to the point that these devices are now largely obsolete.

Of course, you can transport USB over WiFi, and maybe that’s the best answer, today. That is, if you really hate wires.