HP USB to Serial Port Adapter

Product Overview

AI-generated summary

At £13.09 ex-VAT, this kind of HP-branded USB-to-serial adapter is the sort of “just get it working” item you want in the drawer. If you’re dealing with legacy kit—old routers, serial console cables for switches, industrial controllers, cash machines, that kind of thing—USB-to-serial is often the cheapest way to keep downtime down. For straightforward Windows setups, it usually does the job reliably, and the HP branding doesn’t hurt if you’re supporting a mixed fleet and want something that’s less likely to be flaky than no-name adapters.

That said, I wouldn’t buy it for anything high-friction or “mystery hardware” without checking the environment. Serial adapters can be picky depending on driver support, port settings, and whether you’re on Windows vs. newer Linux environments (and what distro), especially if you’re doing automation at scale. If you’re buying for dozens of machines or mission-critical console access, I’d test one unit first and confirm the target OS/serial drivers behave as expected—otherwise you can end up troubleshooting baud rates and driver weirdness instead of doing the job.