Motorola Droid Gains USB Host Capabilities via Mod

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In December we brought a Droid hack to your attention that allowed for Droid GUI based WiFi tethering and now, thanks to a mod by Mike Kershaw and Mike Baker (from Kismet and OpenWRT respectively) a means has been found to allow the Droid to host USB devices – though, at this stage, things are, shall we say, a little rough around the edges (convoluted is the word I was looking for).

The mod, which has been brought to our attention by Chris Paget, chief hacker of reverse engineering firm H4RDW4RE, involves utilising a cigarette lighter charging cable, a USB extender and a micro-USB cable to make a micro-dongle that, with a little tinkering, will see the Droid being able to host USB devices (specifically you need to turn the phone off, connect the cable and associated USB device, turn the Droid back on and then unplug the improvised micro-dongle the moment the Motorola logo disappears).

And, as if this wasn’t truncated enough, should you wish to connect to a differing USB peripheral you’ll need to reboot your Droid and run through the above procedure once more. Moreover, there are other issues, such as leaving the improvised micro-dongle plugged in – which will see the phone through its toys out of its pram and not recognize said peripherals.

Interested in giving it a shot? You can find out full details, including an involved description of the procedure required, here.