StarTech.com 8 Port Serial Hub USB to RS232/RS485/RS422 Adapter - Industrial USB 2.0 to DB9 Serial Converter Hub - IP30 Rated - Din Rail Mountable Metal Serial Hub - 15kV ESD Protection

Product Overview

AI-generated summary

If you genuinely need multiple serial connections off one computer, this StarTech hub makes sense—especially in industrial-adjacent installs where RS-232/422/485 environments get messy. Din-rail mounting and a metal enclosure are the right kind of “don’t babysit this” features, and the ESD claim matters in the real world when cables run through noisy spaces. Where it earns its keep is convenience: you don’t end up hunting for separate dongles, drivers, and power/compatibility quirks per device.

That said, £354.62 ex-VAT is only good value if you’ll actually use several of the ports and you know what you’re doing with the RS standards (RS-485 vs RS-422 vs RS-232 is not interchangeable). If you’re only connecting one or two legacy devices, you’ll usually do better with cheaper single-port adapters and simplify troubleshooting. Also, serial is still serial: baud rate, cabling, grounding, and termination can be the real problem—not the hub—so if your environment isn’t well-understood, no adapter will magically fix that. Buy this if you’re standardising a small fleet of serial endpoints and want a robust, rack/DIN-friendly way to manage them; avoid it if you need just one port or you’re still figuring out the wiring/protocol side.