Hidden USB Ports

[atkinsb3]

I've always thought it would be nice to have USB ports in the camper to charge stuff and wondered why there were none.

Today I was trying to figure out how to power an Amazon Fire Stick for the TV without running an extension cord to the outlets in the bedroom and ran across two USB ports! They were hiding in the dark interior of the shelf below the TV. I'm probably the only one, but I never knew they were there until today. We've owned the camper for 3 1/2 years.

[German Shepherd Guy]

Man you got to love RVing!!

[LHaven]

Now I'm curious. The only connector to an Amazon Firestick is a USB connector, and it serves for both power and data. If you don't have a USB connector on the back (or front) of your TV, how are you going to use a Firestick in the first place? And if you do, then it will power your Firestick all by itself.

[markcee]

Originally Posted by LHaven

Now I'm curious. The only connector to an Amazon Firestick is a USB connector, and it serves for both power and data. If you don't have a USB connector on the back (or front) of your TV, how are you going to use a Firestick in the first place? And if you do, then it will power your Firestick all by itself.

Firestick into HDMI port and the USB cable on the Firestick goes to USB/AC adapter plug, not to a TV USB port. At least on my TVs, the USB ports don't supply enough juice to power the Firestick.

[flybouy]

Originally Posted by atkinsb3

I've always thought it would be nice to have USB ports in the camper to charge stuff and wondered why there were none.

Today I was trying to figure out how to power an Amazon Fire Stick for the TV without running an extension cord to the outlets in the bedroom and ran across two USB ports! They were hiding in the dark interior of the shelf below the TV. I'm probably the only one, but I never knew they were there until today. We've owned the camper for 3 1/2 years.

Thanks for posting this info for others that may not be aware that the USB outlets are present. I think it's obvious that you know how it works.

[LHaven]

Originally Posted by markcee

Firestick into HDMI port and the USB cable on the Firestick goes to USB/AC adapter plug, not to a TV USB port. At least on my TVs, the USB ports don't supply enough juice to power the Firestick.

Oh, duh, of course. It's HDMI, not USB!
Brain bubbles, too early in the morning.

Another option for those without USB jacks would be a simple USB wall charger (or an "outlet multiplier with USB ports") and an A/A cable.

I use the USB "media" jack on the back of my Summit TV to power a Bluetooth headphone transmitter, and I haven't run into any power problems, but a streaming stick would eat more.

I don't have any USB outlets in the TV area other than that, though we do have two builtin on DW's side of the bed, presumably to charge our phones.

[NH_Bulldog]

The installed USB ports (we have 12 scattered about the inside and outside of the RV) have a 2.4a output which is not enough to power a FireStick. I originally used a charging adapter in the 110 wall outlet for the FireStick, but since I also wanted to charge my wifi hotspot, I swapped out the low power USB outlet to a high power USB outlet.

[LHaven]

My go-to unit for this application has been this one. All the USB outlets are 4.2A, and who doesn't need additional AC outlets? These particular ones have been discontinued (and are therefore insanely priced), but the page leads to lots of others just like them.

[NH_Bulldog]

I upgraded the outside duplex to one with two USB ports in addition to the regular duplex, but the USB ports there do not work unless connected to shore power or a generator. We camp off-grid quite a bit so having more USB ports powered by 120vac is pointless for us. All the inside USB ports on the 12v system have been upgraded to higher output and remain independent of the 120vac system.