Like many reviewers here, I purchased the Cables Unlimited USB1510 USB to IrDA Adapter to replace a Polar USB IR Interface that was failing. I found it looking for less expensive alternatives to the Polar version. I'm using the Adapter with my Polar 610i, PPP v.4.03.050 and a ThinkPad running Windows XP Professional SP3. It's reading faster than my old Polar unit used to, and seems to have less trouble managing larger numbers of files.

1. Irda Driver

So far, it's excellent value for the price. Strangely, the annoying little CD that came with the Adapter didn't have a driver for XP on it; however, there's one in the driver package that can be downloaded from the Cables Unlimited website. XP may also have a compatible driver already. For those who are having trouble getting it to read, here are the settings noted by J. Gilmore in his review last year. With these settings, PPP should read through the Adapter with no problems: Options - Preferences - Hardware - IR Communication port - This should be set to 'IrDA' Options - Preferences - Hardware - Mobile Connection - Make sure this is unchecked Then from the same window: IR Communication port - Options - Make sure the first four boxes are checked. Buying this product is a crapshoot.

There is a $5 handling fee to return it if it's faulty and you have to pay the postage for the return and shipping a new product to you. It's also not windows certified, which your operating system will warn you about when installing the drivers. The device itself is low quality and poorly constructed.

The plastic housing came unsnapped after plugging it in the USB port. (I've plugged in USB devices before.

This has never happened.) Another user on this post gave a huge techy response explaining how to make the product work. His advice, while well intentioned, made me decide to buy the product.

Now that I have it and it doesn't work, his advice does not make fix the piece of garbage or give me my money back. (Very appreciative for the time he put into the review, though. Not his fault that the one I got doesn't work.) The CD that comes with the product, as many other users have stated, was written by cheap translators in the cheap factory that made this cheap product. The drivers that come on the CD were made for Windows Me, Windows 98, and Windows 2000. I visited the web site of the vendor as described from a previous review poster and quickly found a driver link and downloaded this file. Upon installing the driver, Windows (I use XP professional on an hp desktop) informed me that the device was NOT tested or certified as being compatible with windows. I guess this was another cost saving measure by the manufacturer.

I continued installing and found the latest driver version was 1.0.0.8, not 1.3 as described by the techy poster. Windows did install something when I plugged the device in and did say it was ready to use, but that was where the excited stopped. No icon in the tray, nothing under My Computer (as the instructions tell you to look for). I also checked the driver settings and they were not the same as the ones described by the technical poster. Some of the advanced driver hardware settings were not even the same.

Basically, my experience was EXACTLY that of the other one-star poster. This tells me that the company has a serious quality control problem. It's too late for me, but not for you.

Forget about this product. Go to a brick and mortar shop and pick up something similar, but make sure you can get 100% of your money back if it doesn't work.

Feel Free to comment if you need any clarification. Like most other people writing reviews, I was looking for an alternative for the Polar USB-to-IR Adapter.

I just plugged the device into my 64-bit Windows 7 desktop and the drivers were automatically installed and it with both the 4.0 and 5.0 versions of the Polar software. My S625X communicated easily with the device and I was able to upload and download with no problems. I also tested this device on my 32-bit Windows 7 laptop and the results were the same. I'm very happy with this purchase as I was just about to give up on using my Polar. We have a Palm smartphone, and when we purchased a new laptop with Windows 7 64-bit preinstalled, we found out belatedly that Palm does not provide a 64-bit USB driver so we could not sync the device.

We therefore needed to sync via infrared but the laptop didn't have an integrated IrDA adapter. This Cables Unlimited USB1510 met the need. The package contains the adapter, a small USB extension cable, and a driver CD. We didn't even use or need the driver CD though. We plugged the adapter into a USB port and Windows connected to Windows Update and found the driver it required.

Irda Driver

We were then able to successfully sync the Palm smartphone via infrared. Conclusion: if you need an infrared adapter for Windows 7 64-bit, this device works well.

I have to admit, I was frustrated getting this device to work at first. I contemplated returning it thinking it was not compatible with my computer and Heart Rate Monitor (HRM).

With a little patience I was able to get the driver installed and after a few tries the Infrared adapter was able to sync my HRM with my computer. I use Vista 32-bit and a Polar S725X. One tip I have is to make sure you plug the IrDA adapter into the USB cord provided. It didn't make sense to plug one USB adapter into another USB cord before plugging it into my computer. This made a difference, and allowed my computer to automatically search and download the driver for me.

Overall, this device did everything I wanted it to do and for less than 1/3 he price for the Polar counterpart. I needed an infrared reader for my dive computer, and the one that came from the computer manufacturer was over 75 dollars! After checking around, I found out this inexpensive one would work. I got it and it work perfectly! Very easy, true plug and play on my laptop. The instructions that came with it were hard to understand, were written like someone who didn't know english wrote them. They made installation sound so difficult, saying you had to go into the computer and make some changes in it's setup, but, that didn't need to be done.

Just plug it into a usb port and it works with the application I was using! Finally something easy for the computer! I had to return this product because it did not work on my laptop. The support for this product takes 2-3 days to get an answer. The documentation is obviously not written by someone who speaks English.

THe software disk is not configured to run on 64-bit Vista. I was able to use the driver automatically retrieved by WIndows, which turned out to be the same one provided by the vendor. However I got conflicting instructions about using it as an unsigned driver. Finally, it turns out there is a conflict if you want to use this and your laptop already has an InfraRed device.

Mine had a built-in device (which was not specificially ordered, just included). According to what I understand from the vendor, I cannot use this device if I have an InfraRed device already.

(FYI, the built-in device does not provide the interface I need for my Palm, so it does not help me!) So, don't bother trying this if your laptop has an InfraRed device. I was looking for a cheaper alternative for downloading training files from my Polar S625X heart rate monitor. The official polar irda product is over 50 bucks, which seemed ridiculous, so I searched Amazon and found this one that another reviewer suggested for the S625X. Everything works great. I plugged the adapter into my Windows XP laptop and elected to let Windows search the internet for drivers (rather than use the installation mini-disc).

The drivers were found and I also installed the latest Polar Performance software from their website. Launched the software, clicked to connect with the watch, put the watch on Connect, and zing - the two communicated right away and I was able to download my files. Couldn't have been easier. If anything should go wrong in the future - such as, it stops working for some reason - I will post an update. But so far, very very happy.