4 USB devices I want to be popular again

• External Blu-ray and DVD drives
• Combination music players and flash drives
• TV tuners
• Retro game systems

Today, USB accessories are more common than ever, thanks as much to the rise of USB-C as anything else. It’s really about the juice USB-C can deliver — whereas a lot of older accessories had to be low-energy or use a separate power supply, many products with USB-C can run entirely off one cable. Heck, there are portable USB-C monitors, which would’ve been impossible to fathom just 15 years ago.

Over time, however, some accessory types have fallen out of favor. Mostly you can chalk this up to other products making them redundant, or at least less useful. I’m okay with that overall — it’s called technological progress. But I do have a certain nostalgia for a few of them, and wish they were more popular, if just so I could get the best versions instead of having to sift through questionable clones on sites like Amazon and Walmart.

External Blu-ray and DVD drives

Mostly for the movies

It’s actually not that hard to shop for external disc drives online, but few people bother with them anymore. For (most) local storage purposes, you’re likely better off buying an SSD or a USB flash drive. If you want to watch the latest movies and TV shows, it’s often far cheaper and easier to subscribe to streaming services. The same goes with music. You can’t buy an official external drive from Apple anymore, and most computer makers omit internal ones.

Your local library probably has hundreds of older discs available to borrow, in which case picking up a Blu-ray or DVD drive may be one of the cheapest entertainment options available.

Here’s the thing though — there are still plenty of movies, shows, and albums that are difficult if not impossible to find on streaming. And even if you can find them, it’s reassuring to know that you have a copy that can’t be revoked because of arbitrary licensing rights. Your local library probably has hundreds of older discs available to borrow, in which case picking up a Blu-ray or DVD drive may be one of the cheapest entertainment options available.

I’m also concerned that without disc drives, there’s a risk we’re going to lose some important media, whether it’s old family photos and videos, or software that you can no longer find on the web. Archival may not be a great reason for you to buy a Blu-ray drive, realistically, but you can see how the world as a whole might suffer when the last external drive disappears from Amazon.

Combination music players and flash drives

A cheap solution for the gym or your car

It’s pretty obvious why these devices are rare. With streaming being ubiquitous, many people don’t even have local music files to load onto a player. The ones who do will probably still prefer to sync with their smartphone, which they’re already carrying everywhere, and can handle more than a couple of basic functions. Indeed, some Android devices can turn into desktop computers when they’re plugged into a monitor, which makes shuffling a few dozen MP3 folders seem a bit pathetic.

They can’t be disrupted by going through a tunnel or deciding that you’d rather not pay for Apple Music this month.

What these products do offer, however, is a cheap and simple way of playing music anywhere, at any time, no internet connection needed. You might plug one into your car’s USB port, or connect some headphones for a run or a gym session. They can’t be disrupted by going through a tunnel or deciding that you’d rather not pay for Apple Music this month.

The issue with the ones on the market at the moment is that many of them are cheaply made and/or lack critical features, like Bluetooth, playlists, automatic folder sync when you plug into a computer, and/or support for lossless formats like FLAC and OGG. If one of these had iPod-level polish while maintaining a price of $50 or less, it would probably sell like gangbusters among the people who still value offline music — which is a larger contingent than you might think, given services like Bandcamp.

TV tuners

Time to add some DVR back into the mix

The heyday of USB TV tuners was a brief one. It was a time when computers were getting increasingly better at media, but before streaming services were established enough to undermine conventional broadcasters. If you knew what you were doing, you could in a sense get the best of both worlds, turning your computer into an overpowered TiVo. The catch was that on top of the tuner, you needed ample storage and specialized software — which helps explain why this tech isn’t built into modern laptops.

In some scenarios, a tuner could potentially eliminate the need to pay for streaming services or cable packages.

In an age of Netflix, YouTube, and Disney+, why would you bother getting a tuner anymore? The answer is that there’s still a decent amount of over-the-air content to watch, at least in the US, where you might be able to pick up everything from news and sports to the documentaries and kid shows on PBS. Many broadcasters carry non-English channels like Telemundo or Univision. In some scenarios, a tuner could potentially eliminate the need to pay for streaming services or cable packages.

I doubt USB tuners will ever take off again, but something I’d love to see is a stick with phone-controlled DVR storage, especially if you could connect it directly to a TV. That would solve several obstacles at once, keeping the broadcast world relevant for a little while longer.

Retro game systems

The slim possibilities of a new era

There’s actually no shortage of retro game systems that you can hook up to your TV and/or load with games from your computer. Many of these are pretty shoddy though, and don’t really take advantage of the latest technologies, unless you’re willing to step up to something (relatively) expensive and big. What I’m really asking for then isn’t so much a revival as a middleground — something that’s compact and affordable with some games preloaded, but also has polished hardware and software.

While the emulators most cheap retro systems rely on are legal, the ROM files they rely on usually aren’t, so it’s only small-scale companies that aren’t worried about being sued that bother taking the risk.

There’s a reason you can’t find that, though. While the emulators most cheap retro systems rely on are legal, the ROM files they rely on usually aren’t, so it’s only small-scale companies that aren’t worried about being sued by game publishers that bother taking the risk. Major players like Sony and Nintendo have put out their own retro systems, but only as limited-edition products. Needless to say, they’re more focused on selling you systems capable of new games, not just ones from 30 or 40 years ago.

Dropping the demand for preloaded games could do the trick, yet that would probably be too niche — not cheap enough to be an impulse buy, and not convenient or powerful enough for the average person to fork out a little extra. I’m not going to give up hope, though.