Belkin F5U301 CableFree 4-Port USB 2.0 Hub with Dongle

The range on this thing isn't anything near what's advertised. For best reception you'd want about 5 feet max with the units in direct line of site... beyond that it starts getting iffy quicker and quicker. But I needed a solution to a particular space dilemma and this solved it for me. There's a reason it's rated as low as it is though, it is lousy at its range and generally is a software pain in the neck if you have multiple users and thing gets confused. As usual for generic equipment issues, unplugging both the USB adapter and hub seems to unfreeze the software so you can use it again, or at least tell it to turn off and on and then use it again. But if you install the software, your other users, even power users/admins, etc won't have the software/icon running necessarily when they log in. You have to set it up to start manually for each user.Talk about obnoxious. I was thinking of giving this thing a rating of three since it helped with my problem and I bought it knowing the complaints about the range, but knowing that short range was all I needed. But now that I think of all the obnoxious problems it had with the software too... one star. And it doesn't deserve that. I can't recall any other Belkin products that gave me so much trouble.

This worked perfectly for me. People have said this version is far inferior to the new version and I'm sure that's true, but this met my needs and was much cheaper.I needed this to connect a digital scale to my computer in my work laboratory. My computer and the scale are on two opposite walls and I did not want to move the scale nor did I want to run a cable. The distance is approximately 10 feet and everything communicates with no hiccups. According to the utility the signal is at 90%.My computer runs Windows XP Pro. Installation was quick and easy. The reason I gave it 4 out of 5 stars was because I plugged an external hard drive into it and the transfer speeds were a bit below the advertised speeds. The signal said 90% but speeds were about 60% of advertised. Still, for being wireless, it works great.While the newer model may be significantly better, I can't in good faith give this a lower rating just because there is a better one available. Simply put, if you don't need a lot of range and you don't need super speeds, this is a much less expensive alternative.

Everything about this product is bad. The manufacture has virtually no information on their web site to help make an informed decision to buy. Just some highly exaggerated specifications. Up to 30 foot range means about 10 feet in reality. The hub is supposed to be USB compliant but it worked with only a small percentage of my USB devices. An afterthought USB extension cable was included aparently to increase the range but this adds more wires and sloppiness where the goal was to reduce wires anD clutter. Without the extension, the device barely works. Even worse is the fact that the USB device driver is easily crashed when the wireless signal is interrupted requiring a reboot of the computer. I spent hours on the phone with Belkin support and no one knew much of anything about this device. I also received conflicting information from everyone I spoke to. One support person told me that the device had been recalled which is not true. Another told me that it had never been released for sale and wanted to know how I got one. It is really amazing how confused the company is with respect to this device. This product is an incredibly sloppy rush job and is not ready for market. The support people at Belkin were friendly and interested in helping but they had no useful information even at "level 3 support". I don't think I will ever buy another Belkin device that may require support.IF YOU LIKE BLUE SCREEN COMPUTER CRASHES WITH MANY USB DEVICES THAT WORK PERFECTLY ON ANY OTHER HUB AND LIKE REBOOTING EVERY TIME SOMETHING INTERRUPTS THE WIRELESS PATH THEN THIS DEVICE Is FOR YOU.

Would rate this Zero stars. NO support for windows 7 or vista, BUT of course they don't tell you that until you try to install the software. Just a waste of money. DO NOT BUY! I REPEAT, DO NOT BUY! Even though it says you can contact your provider for software, YOU CAN'T. THERE IS NO DRIVER FOR WINDOWS 7 OR VISTA. THIS PRODUCT IS A WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY. SAVE YOURSELF THE HASSLE.

The product requires drivers, and the drivers are windows only, which entirely defeated the reason I bought it. I may try some windows wrappers later, but I really would rather avoid this.

A wireless USB hub is very appealing. The implementation of this one makes it useless.The software only runs on Windows XP. There are no Vista drivers. The hub does not work until you've logged in and even then, it takes a few seconds. Since you have to have log in before the hub will work, your mouse and keyboard can't be plugged in to the wireless hub. This also means that USB audio devices that must be plugged in at boot will not work. I don't understand why Windows requires USB audio devices to be plugged in at boot, but that's Microsoft's fault, not Belkins.It gets better. Yesterday, we rebooted the machine and my brother logged in with his account. The wireless hub didn't work at all because the software wasn't installed for him. Why would the installer even bother installing this software for only one user? No problem, we installed the software on his account. Reboot. Everything seemed to work. Fast user switch to my account and the software freaks out because the software running on his account is using the device. The USB devices attached to that hub go offline.To Summarize:- No Vista support- Can't use it for keyboard/mouse- No support for multiple user accounts- Fast user switching messes it upHowever tempted you may be, don't buy this product until they address these issues. This product is not ready for prime time. On the plus side, it seems like all of these problems are just related to software. If Belkin decides to, they could probably fix all of these problems in software.