The full form of USB OTG is USB On-The-Go which means USB devices are now more portable and can be connected to any device (should support OTG connectivity) like smartphones, tablets, and phablets using the same mini USB port and connector. When USB OTG first launched in 2001, the USB devices can only be connected through a USB OTG Cable. OTG Cable has a standard USB port on one end and mini-USB jack on another end. All you have to do is just connect the mini USB jack end to your smartphone or tablet and a USB device on another end, now you can access that USB device on the smartphone or tablet. But now things have changed a lot, now there are USB drives which you can directly connect to your phone’s mini-USB port and access it on your device.
Different uses of USB OTG:
The widest and common use of USB OTG is connecting your USB drive to your smartphone. Connecting a USB drive to your phone is cool as well as useful on your smartphone. Now you can carry more data with you even after your phone’s internal memory and SD card. You can connect your pen drive to your smartphone and access the data there.
If you type too much on your tablet or smartphone and got fed off that tiny keyboard with even more tiny keys? Then no more because now you can also connect Mouse and Keyboard to your smartphone using this USB OTG connectivity. You need a USB OTG cable (you can buy it for 5$ from Amazon.com), your smartphone and a USB keyboard.
- Connect USB OTG cable to your smartphone.
- Now connect the USB keyboard to the OTG cable.
- Launch any note-taking app on your smartphone and start typing with the USB keyboard.
Like the keyboard, you can also connect the mouse to your smartphone, and it works the same as it works on any PC. Well, these functionality is limited to Android smartphones but you can do the same thing on Windows 10 Mobile using “Continuum”.
Dedicated USB OTG devices:
USB OTG is nowadays very popular on Android smartphones and tablets and as you all know “need is the mother of invention”, most of the storage devices making industries started to make storage devices with OTG functionality built-in. You can directly plug In these devices to your smartphone and access it from there only.
Charge your phone:
If you own a giant tablet and your phone’s battery is dying, then you can also charge your phone using your tablet:
- Plugin a USB OTG cable to your phone.
- Connect a USB cable to the other end of that OTG cable.
- Now connect that USB cable to your tablet and see the magic.
I recommend you not to charge your phone to the full battery or charge your phone more often like this because it affects the battery life of both the devices.
