Google Nexus One Phone and Plugable’s Universal Dock

Sven Killig has posted a few more bits of his cool Google Nexus One USB host mode work, this time running with the Plugable Universal Docking Station.

Plugable UD-160-A driving big display and more for Nexus One

Plugable UD-160-A driving 1920x1080 display and more, all from a humble Nexus One phone

This setup uses the udlfb DisplayLink Linux driver work from here (git.plugable.com) and a bunch of other components Sven has developed or pulled together, to turn the phone into a full computer with display, keyboard, audio and more. His video of this has gone viral (over 85,000 views). You can see the video and full instructions at Sven’s site. Very cool.

The photo above is of the Plugable UD-160-A Universal Docking Station, in use at Sven’s desk (the dock is laying on its side to better fit in the photo – Sven has removed the weighted bottom stand).

The Plugable dock is perfect for this kind of application with the Nexus One phone — it includes all the USB devices in one place, all with open source drivers. The dock has its own 2.5A AC power (see the USB dual-power Y cable plugged into the front USB A and back USB B ports), along with driving the 1920×1080 monitor (the big DVI cable in the back), and providing ethernet (above the DVI) and audio (in the front – he doesn’t have them plugged in in the pic).

So this all is great for geeks, but when will this work out of the box? Several comments on Sven’s work are messages like “Google! Integrate this into Android now!”

With Google offices near here, and with related USB terminal work on the same Plugable dock being funded as a Google Summer of Code project, it would be great to demo this and get things moving… Whatcha say, Google!?

3 comments on “Google Nexus One Phone and Plugable’s Universal Dock”

  1. Hans

    Sadly there’s been an open issue regarding USB host mode on AOSP for a long time now with hundreds of comments and Google has been mostly ignoring it :/

    On an unrelated note, I wonder of my HTC Desire (bravo) is technically capable of this?

  2. Bernie Thompson

    Hi Hans! I couldn’t find any evidence that people got USB OTG working on the HTC Desire (although several threads with people asking). I would guess, unfortunately, it’s not capable.

    Often the chipsets used have a capability, but either the board layout or the firmware don’t expose it. That’s often been the case to date with USB OTG.

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