Gearmo USB to RS-232 Serial Adapter w/LED Indicators, FTDI Chipset, Cross-Platform Compatible, 36in Cable

This is a very well functioning USB-RS232 serial converter. After trying (and failing) using a well-reviewed Keyspan converter that I've had for several years (with TI chip and Keyspan driver), I tried this Gearmo with the FTDI chip and have had excellent results on an Intel Mac Mini with MacOS 10.14.6 (Mojave) with the stock FTDI driver that comes with MacOS. My application is using a remote serial console communicating with the getty daemon that MacOS also includes. I use RTS/CTS hardware handshaking at 19,200 baud and up, and haven't experienced any issues. The FTDI chip and the Apple driver appear to respect all the termios serial flags and commands used by the appropriate gettytab file entry (I had to modify my gettytab entry for the settings I used -- that takes a little work, but once you understand all the flags it's not bad). Finally, I like having the LEDs for the various serial lines. The Gearmo is a nice little product at a great price.

This worked fantastic. And I like that its all one unit, so it can survive life in my laptop bag much better than my previous converter.

Worked (almost*) right out of the box. Tested only in Windows 10 64 bit. Needed to program a universal remote (URC MX-800, also should work with all other variants like MX-600, MX-700, etc). *The default latency was set to 16ms which made it not communicate with my equipment properly, but setting it to 1ms in device manager solved it. LED's are nice and useful, you can see which lanes/pins are actively receiving or transmitting. Material of the case is good. Two things that could make this even more perfect in my humble opinion. Make the cable the same color as the case (smoke colored). As it is, it looks like something from 2003 or so with its see-through cable and being able to see the sheilding. Second, if they could somehow add a opaque piece of plastic between each LED so the light doesnt bleed into the holes next to it, it would look so much more nice looking and easier to read the LEDs.

Ftdi chips installed and work great

Gearmo FTDI2-LED USB RS-232 Serial Adapter with LED Indicators Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, XP, 2000 Support I got this to connect my SU1400 UPS to my PC (and its 'Powerchute' B.E. V9.2 software). So far it works fine under Windows 7 64-bit. (I had an old Keyspan USA-19HS TI based adapter that seemed to work at first, but somehow actually hung my PC when waking from hybrid sleep...I assume related to the older drivers it used). When I first connected the Gearmo to my PC, it loaded some older (2010) drivers from the internet and came up as COM3. This initially seemed o.k., but when my PC woke from sleep the UPS software had lost connectivity. I then loaded the latest FTDI drivers (2.12.26 from the FTDI website) using the EXE version. This somehow then came up as COM5. But, after I adjusted the settings back to COM3 (which it thought was still in use), things have worked o.k. since. It even comes out of sleep without an issue (and resumes communication). The lights conveniently let me know when it's working. Pretty neat.

I use them with older instrumentation software. They work flawlessly. The LED lights are a great communication check. They work on old PCs and new ones. All types of software and hardware. They work with VMWare Virtual computers or directly. They are better and more compatible than the add in cards. They are better, less flaky than other USB adapters I've tried. The are supported in all versions of Windows with or without the included driver CD. I wouldn't buy any other USB RS232 adapter.

Installed in our packet site with a Raspi Pi 4 running Bookworm, Direwolf, and a Rigblaster Plus. Works perfectly. Choose this because of the status LEDs for each line. Only thing I would like to see is a short cord version and the blue LEDs on the same side as the yellow status LEDs.

I needed this to help program and diagnose a fire alarm panel. I initially wired my connector incorrectly and could not get any communication. Thanks to the lights on this adapter I was able to quickly diagnose my mistake and get my programming done. I had originally used a more expensive adapter from a local store but couldn't get any communication and thought it was defective (which I later learned was my mistake). If you need a USB to serial, this is the only way to go!