USB Gets Unwired

Component manufacturer Cypress is touting a new wireless standard designed to free keyboards, mice and game controllers from their cables. WirelessUSB LS aims to allow any of these USB peripherals to operate wirelessly with your PC.

Unlike similar wireless technologies, such as Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, WirelessUSB LS isn't a networking solution. It works on a simple point-to-point basis. This allows, for example, your keyboard to talk to your PC, enabling fast, simple communication between a PC and USB device.

Multipurpose Dongle

Currently, setting up a wireless USB device requires you to plug a dongle into the USB port on your PC so the peripheral in question can communicate with your computer. But once you have plugged in the Cypress dongle, any wireless USB device will work with your PC, unlike the more proprietary radio-frequency-based wireless keyboards and mice on the market today, according to the developer.

Cypress also hopes to encourage motherboard manufacturers to build the WirlessUSB LS chip directly onto boards so there would be no need for a dongle.

Customers should be able to purchase at retail "a wireless USB device that will work with anything, just like USB does now," says Christopher Jones, a Cypress spokesperson.

The technology is already available in a few devices, including a wireless USB game pad from Saitek, but Jones says more products should be launched in time for the holidays.

Slow to Start

To ensure worldwide compatibility, WirelessUSB uses the same 2.4-GHz frequency as Bluetooth. The current version, LS, only offers a relatively slow data transfer rate of 62.5 kilobits per second, so it's only suitable for devices like keyboards and mice.

However, Cypress plans to launch a faster version by 2005 that will support 10- to 20-megabit-per-second data transfer rates. That faster speed will make the technology more feasible for use with USB devices like printers or digital audio players.

Cypress claims its technology has some other key advantages over the current crop of wireless devices. It has a long battery life of six to nine months, and is more stable than R/F-based solutions, Cypress representatives say. They also say users should not experience interference between devices even if there are several in the same area. Also, a low latency of less than 4 milliseconds means gamers will still get a quick on-screen response from game pad actions.

The Cypress technology operates at a range of about 30 feet, so there is no need to have a line-of-sight connection between PC and peripheral. This could mean that it will be attractive to set-top-box manufacturers seeking remote-control solutions that don't require the box to be easily accessible.