hid4flutter 0.1.3

A flutter plugin for communicating with HID devices (Human Interface Device)

hid4flutter

hid4flutter is a Flutter plugin that enables communication with HID (Human Interface Device) devices from a Flutter application.

Disclaimer

Warning: This plugin is currently under development, and the API may be subject to change. Use it at your own risk in a production environment.

Some features are planned but their development has been postponed. Check the list here.

Contributions are welcome! Feel free to submit issues and pull requests to help improve this plugin.

Supported Platforms

• Windows
• macOS
• Linux (currently requires to install libhidapi-hidraw0 manually, see installation)

Note: Some platforms will be supported in future releases.

Implementation details

Desktop support (Windows/macOS/Linux) is achieved by using hidapi and Dart FFI.

Planned platform support

Support for the following platforms is planned to be added in the near future:

• Android: can be easily supported using MethodChannel and Android HID.
• Web: experimental WebHID can be used to support the Web platform.

Installation

To install hid4flutter in a Flutter project, follow these steps:

1. Add the following line to the pubspec.yaml file:

   dependencies:
     hid4flutter: ^0.1.3
   

   Replace ^0.1.3 with the latest version of the plugin.

2. Run the following command to install the dependency:

   flutter pub get
   

3. Import the hid4flutter package in your Dart code:

   import 'package:hid4flutter/hid4flutter.dart';
   

4. Follow the documentation and examples to integrate and communicate with HID devices in your Flutter application.

Note: On Linux platform it is currently required to install hidapi manually by executing the following command

sudo apt-get install libhidapi-hidraw0

Currently hidapi doesn't get compiled on Linux when building this library. It will be in future releases when this issue will be addressed.

Usage

Get all connected devices list

List<HidDevice> devices = await Hid.getDevices();

// Do something with the list

Get device by vendorId and productId

List<HidDevice> devices = await Hid.getDevices(vendorId: 0x55, productId: 0x13);

// Since multiple devices can match the same vendorId 
// and productId, get the first device or null.
HidDevice? device = devices.firstOrNull;

// Do something with the device

Send Output Report

final HidDevice device = ...

try {
  await device.open();

  // Send an Output report of 32 bytes (all zeroes).
  // The reportId is optional (default is 0x00).
  // It will be prefixed to the data as per HID rules.
  Uint8List data = Uint8List(32);
  await device.sendReport(reportId: 0x00, reportData);
} finally {
  await device.close();
}

Receive Input Report

final HidDevice device = ...

try {
  await device.open();

  // Receive a report of 32 bytes with timeout of 2 seconds.
  Uint8List data = await device.receiveReport(32, timeout: const Duration(seconds: 2));

  // First byte is always the reportId.
  int reportId = data[0];

  print('Received report with id $reportId: $data.');
} finally {
  await device.close();
}

Planned features

These features are planned to be developed but currently not supported:

• Get device HID report descriptor: request the report descriptor from the device and return it as a structured objects representing the HID collections. Using hidapi version >= 0.14.0 gives the ability to easily get the report descriptor bytes. A parser is required however to get a structured object.
• Notify about device connection/disconnection events: add the possibility to listen connection/disconnection events and avoid polling getDevices(...) function.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.