There are many people who curiously use a very specific USB port and for life things, they do not know exactly what it is called or why manufacturers include it in their devices. If we talk about the different types then we would never finish, therefore, let’s go with the basics, what is USB Passthrough and what is it for?
If you are already a certain age, you will have lived in the time where each time we were going to plug in a new component via USB we had to get up from the chair, contort and turn around to be able to see with more or less light where we had to plug in said component. Those times luckily passed years ago, but the trend that was generated at that time today is preserved, the USB Passthrough.
What was it for and why do we continue to maintain the USB Passthrough?
Those twists of contortionism that we talked about sound like a joke, but the reality is that in small or very small desks it was a small part of the skill of the circus of the sun. Things have fallen to the ground due to carelessness in doing this, but in general, the most important thing is that for everyone it was a problem and a nuisance.
The PC cases with front USB were long in coming and let’s not even talk about high-performance USB, therefore, in the meantime, peripheral manufacturers decided to go a step forward and offer something that the chassis builders did not yet contemplate: USBs accessible from their own components and fully operational.
The idea of course triumphed and it did not take long for the so-called USB Passthrough to spread throughout the sector, but a short time later each manufacturer took a different path in terms of how to implement it. And here there is cloth to cut, since, for example, in gaming keyboards two USB cables are needed so that both for energy and speed, the enabled USB offers the same benefits as if we punctured it directly on the board.
Different types of Passthrough depending on the manufacturer’s characteristics
Some of you may be thinking that your keyboard, mouse pad, DAC or similar does not have more than one USB, we mean a male USB for the motherboard. This is true that it exists and not in a few models, but it is also true that this as a rule is due to low transfer rates or limitations in the port, either by voltage or MHz.
The number of data to share between the same bus and cable also has a lot to say. We cannot compare the amount of information a keyboard handles per second than that of a mouse pad with RGB. Thus, the keyboard should carry two USB cables of equal speed, while the mousepad has plenty of one to perform the USB Passthrough without problems.
Like any technology, manufacturers increasingly integrate this type of USB with the highest speed and highest voltage, to ensure performance and charging in any scenario. And you, what do you use your USB Passthrough for?