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.

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.

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.

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.

Too bad they put on the sticker slightly shifted so the indicators were not clear to see. Re-sticking it is a bit of a pain. For the rest a very handy and good working device.

Ftdi chips installed and work great

I can’t rate this honestly because the serial device I want to use is dead and would not charge. However the instructions seemed incredibly complex and technical to me. I could not install the software.

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.