What is a USB Extender?
In simple terms a USB extender does what it says on the tin! It extends your existing USB cable to allow you to position your USB device (such as a printer or scanner) further away from your computer.
Why Would You Want a USB Extender
There are many reasons you might want a USB extender but these tend to be for convenience, allowing you to place your USB devices where you want them to be rather than cramming them all onto a small desk near your computer. The USB cables that lots of manufacturers include with their devices are generally short in length, maybe only one or two meters in length. Standard USB cables only work up to 5m in length and so if you want a longer cable you will need a USB extender.
Types of USB Extender
There are different types of USB extender available. A standard active USB extension lead might be 5m in length and is designed to allow cable runs over and above the usual 5m limit. Multiple leads can often be connected together up to a maximum of 3, giving a maximum cable run of up to 20m (with three active and one standard 5m lead).
If you are looking for a longer cable than this you will have to look into CAT5 USB Extender which allows the distance between a USB device and a host computer to be extended to incredible lengths using standard CAT5 or CAT6 network cable (generally around 50m for printers, scanners and other higher powered devices, and up to 100m for low powered devices such as keyboards or mice).
We hope this information about the different types of USB extender has been useful to you.