What is an OTG Cable ?

Many smartphones and tablets now have a USB OTG feature. With an OTG cable you can connect other devices to your tablet or smartphone with USB On-The Go. You can think of devices as a keyboard, mouse or a storage device.

What is OTG ?

OTG means On The Go . Before phones turned into smart phones and android operating system came into picture it was very difficult to connect external devices to your mobile phone. People required external storage devices and other external accessories to be connected to the mobile phones and that’s where the OTG came into picture.

What is OTG Cable ?

OTG cable or a OTG connector is something that allows you to use this On The Go feature of your mobile phone. OTG adapter or OTG cable or OTG connector, allows you to attach a full-sized USB flash drive to your tablet or phone via the Micro USB or USB C charging ports. It allows data transfer and connectivity to peripherals.

OTG cable can be a simple connector or a long cable with one end connected to your mobile phone with a Microusb or Type C connection and the other end connected to your USB external device.

You can connect various things to your mobile phone using a OTG cable.

1. Plug in keyboards and mouse to the mobile
2. Access USB sticks and external hard drives from your mobile phone
3. Transfer photos directly from a compatible camera on to the phone
4. Connect smartphone directly to a printer to print files from your phone

If you are recording your podcast on phone and want to transfer it to a hard drive which you can then edit on the go or later transfer to a PC for editing on a software such Audacity.

How to make an OTG Cable ?

Making an OTG cable by your own is fairly simple.

Components required for making an OTG cable

1. USB type A female connector
2. Microusb male connector
3. You will also need very thin isolated copper wire.

Steps to make an OTG cable.

1. Peal the ends of your wires and put a small amount of solder on so you can solder them on connector more easily
2. Standard USB connector has 4 pins. Red and black are input voltage and ground, green and brown are data + and data –
3. Once you are done soldering, wrap a few heating tubes around your connections to ensure they fit snugly around the cable.
4. Connect the wire to the micro USB connector.
5. Many people are confused as to why micro USB 5 pins are used instead of 4. The extra pin, or pin 4, is not usually connected in the regular USB cable. However, if it is connected to the ground pin, the phone will enter host mode and be able read USB keys, webcams and keyboards.
6. While you can use electric tape, it is better to use one tube of cable that makes your cable look even more amazing.

USB OTG Cable

A USB OTG Cable is a standard OTG cable . Below image shows a standard USB OTG cable or connector commonly available in the market.

You can connect your smartphone or tablet to a USB OTG cable that allows you to attach a USB flash drive or mouse, keyboard, hard disk, or other device such as a keyboard or mouse.

This cable is great for transferring apps between smartphones or writing reports on your tablet. OTH hubs allow you to connect multiple devices. This allows you to use your tablet with both a keyboard or a mouse.

Microusb OTG Cable

A Microusb OTG cable is one where one end connection is MicroUSB and other side connection is standard USB type A.

There is one more type of OTG cable known as Type-C OTG cable or adapter. This is used in newer generation phones where charging port is USB Type C.

OTG Cable for android

Most android phones support OTG and depending on the type of charging or data port you can select a MicroUSB or Type-C OTG cable for your android phone.

OTG cable pinout

Here are some pinout diagrams for OTG cable. There are two varieties one a standard data cable version and other where charging is enabled while data transfer. This is known as Y type OTG cable.

Does OTG work on all phones?

Nearly all smartphones or tablets currently supported USB On-The Go. Are you looking for a specific model? Get the free app “USB OTG Tester” for your smartphone to check if it is compatible for OTG.