HDMI to VGA Adapters Now Cost About $10

I remember when the Raspberry Pi first got out, many people wanted to connected it to a VGA display, and at the time, a cheap HDMI to VGA adapter would have cost $30, about the same price of the low-cost ARM11 board. Since then things have changed since it’s possible to find HDMI to VGA adapters for less than $10, and even less than $7 on Aliexpress.

The one linked and pictured above has an HDMI male connector and a VGA female connector, and the following  features listed in buyincoins:

• Support 1080p and 720p.
• Built-in chipset.
• No external power required, power supply from HDMI signal.
• Don’t support audio output.
• Can use for connecting devices with VGA port to HDTV.
• HDMI – standard type A port male.
• VGA – VGA video port, female.

The title seems to imply it’s an HDMI to VGA adapter, but the description tells you it’s for connecting a device via a VGA output ports to an HDTV. Confused…

There’s a very similar device on dx.com available for $11.60 with an added micro HDMI adapter, and non-fake reviews that seem to confirm this works for HDMI devices connected to VGA monitors.

You’ll lose audio output with most of the adapters however, and this may be not a problem for some applications, but if you need audio output, there are also some adapters that costs about the same. I found two that may be interesting: One for $10.60, as shown on the left of the pic, that requires USB power, and the one of the right for $11.99 that does not seem to require external power, and comes with several positive user’s reviews.

In case you want to connect an HDMI TV Stick with a male HDMI connector to a VGA monitor, there are also some HDMI Female to VGA Female adapters, but the price is quite higher ($20 to $30), so the best option is probably to use a cheap HDMI Female to Female adapter together with an HDMI male to VGA adapter.

I’ll conclude with a warning not to buy the cheapest HDMI to VGA cable you can find (e.g. $3 or $4), as some of them are just connected directly, and can only work with analog signals which might (or might not) be OK with your laptop or desktop PC, but not with HDMI dongles or Raspberry Pi.

Thanks to onebir for the article idea.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.

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