Today I'm taking a look at the ACEELE USB 3 USB-C Hub. The main benefit that caught my eye is that it has individual switches for each port. So, if you want to use a specific device plugged into it, you just toggle the switch for that port, and you're good to go. This saves on power and disables things like cameras connected to it when you don't want to use them. Before that I was manually plugging and unplugging devices when I do live streaming.
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| Pressing the individual power switches on the ACEELE USB Hub. |
It feels decent in the hand; it doesn't feel super cheap or anything. It also comes with a hook-and-loop tie on the cable, which is handy for cable management.
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| Holding the ACEELE hub and showing the attached cable with its tie. |
This device has a 3.3 ft cable length. In my case, this isn't ideal. I really wish it was quite a bit longer. For setting things up, 3.3 feet isn't always enough, especially if your computer is any distance away and you want the hub close to you for easy access to the switches.
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| Demonstrating the limited 3.3 ft cable length of the USB hub. |
To get enough length just to show it on screen during my testing, I had to use a short USB-C extension cable I had lying around. It gave me just enough extra reach.
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| A short USB-C extension cable used to add length to the hub's cable. |
There's also a power connector port on the top edge of the hub. I wasn't sure if I'd need external power for what I wanted to connect, so I started testing without it.
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| Close-up showing the external power input port on the ACEELE hub. |
My plan was to connect my microphone, the AVMATRIX UC1218 HDMI capture device for my A6000 camera, and my top-down camera to this hub. The idea was to make things more efficient by easily switching them on and off without having to run them all the time.
First, I tried plugging in the HDMI capture device. I turned on the button for its port, but when I checked the feed in OBS, it was extremely laggy. It seems like this hub might not have the necessary bandwidth to run that specific capture device properly, at least at its current settings. That was disappointing.
It's worth noting that when connecting or disconnecting video devices via the hub's switches, OBS didn't automatically refresh the source. I had to manually go into the source properties, deactivate it, and then reactivate it to get the feed back. For some reason, this also reset the camera settings each time.
Next, I tested my top-down camera, which is a more traditional USB UVC webcam. I plugged it in, toggled the switch, did the deactivate/activate dance in OBS, and it seemed to work alright.
Then I connected my microphone. The microphone connected successfully through the hub. Now I can just switch it off when I don't need it. Better for saving power and a bit of extra security piece of mind not having A/V gear attached to the computer running all of the time.
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| Attaching the hub to a video camera mounting pole which is clamped to my desk. |
Since the original cable was short, I also tried a USB-C extension cable to see if that would work and give me more placement flexibility. Yep, the extension appears to be working fine, giving me that extra length.
What about my Stream Deck? I connected the Stream Deck to one of the ports.
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| The Stream Deck lights up after its corresponding port button is pressed on the hub. |
There we go! Wow, that's going to be very nice. Just being able to press a button on this hub to activate the Stream Deck, or the microphone, or the top-down camera when I want them is really convenient. I don't want these peripherals running 24/7, so the switches are perfect for this use case.
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| The ACEELE hub with three devices connected and switched on (Stream Deck, microphone, and webcam). |
I'm not a huge fan of the USB-A port placement compared to its own fixed USB-C cable. I would have preferred all of those on one side for ergonomic reasons.
The hub claims a 5 Gbps transfer speed (standard for USB 3.0/3.1 Gen 1). I'm not sure if that's the total shared bandwidth or per port, but based on my testing, it wasn't enough for my HDMI video capture device at its current settings, or there was some other issue happening.
However, it did successfully run the webcam I use for my top-down view, the microphone, and the Stream Deck.
So that was a look at this ACEELE switched USB 3 C-type Hub. It wasn't perfectly ideal for all my intended uses due to the bandwidth limitation with the capture card and the short cable, but it does function quite well in several contexts, especially for peripherals you don't need running constantly. If selectively switching USB devices on and off sounds useful for your setup, maybe check it out. You can see more of the testing process in the related video!