# signal11/hidapi

A Simple library for communicating with USB and Bluetooth HID devices on Linux, Mac, and Windows.

Repository: https://github.com/signal11/hidapi
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/hidapi
Homepage: http://www.signal11.us/oss/hidapi/
Language: C
License: NOASSERTION
License Family: other
Last push: 2023-10-16T19:06:36+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 32/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 5988, "days_push": 1052, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases, no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 2536, forks 909 (observed 2026-08-28T04:06:59.168328+00:00)

## What it is
HIDAPI is a multi-platform C library for communicating with USB and Bluetooth HID-class devices on Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, and macOS. It provides a simple unified API for sending and receiving input, output, and feature reports, with multiple platform back-ends.

## Use cases
- communicate with USB HID devices from a cross-platform application
- read input reports from a custom HID gadget
- send feature reports to a HID device on Linux and Windows
- enumerate and open HID devices by VID/PID and serial number
- build a userspace tool that talks to Bluetooth HID peripherals
- debug HID hardware with a test GUI

## When to choose
- you need a simple, portable C API for HID device access across Windows, Linux, and macOS
- you want to embed device communication via a single source file and header
- you are writing userspace code for custom USB or Bluetooth HID hardware

## When to avoid
- you need non-HID USB device classes like mass storage or CDC serial
- you require kernel-level HID driver development
- you need high-level HID report descriptor parsing out of the box

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: stable
- function: sdk, developer-tools
- domain: hardware, cross-platform, developer-tools
- platform: windows, cpp, c
- tags: hid, usb, bluetooth, device-communication, hardware-access, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- signal11/hidapi (main) score 32

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:59.168328+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T02:25:13.712284+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/signal11/hidapi (fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:59.168328+00:00, sha ab91367502bd)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.