USB Inspector

Overview

A simple package that leverages pyusb and allows you to lookup USB vendor and device IDs and get back a human readable vendor and device name. It includes ability to manually update the USB DB without installing a new version of usb-inspector.

Installation

uv add usb-inspector
# via pip
python3 -m pip install usb-inspector

IMPORTANT: On Windows ensure you have libusb-1.0.dll (64bit) in C:\Windows\System32 or you will get a NoBackendError. You can get it from here.

Example Usage

Command Line:

usb-inspector lookup --vendor-id 1A40
usb-inspector lookup --vendor-id 1A40 --device-id 0801

# To manually update the USB DB
usb-inspector delete-data
usb-inspector update-db

import asyncio

from usb_inspector import create_usb_monitoring_service

async def main():
    service = create_usb_monitoring_service(poll_interval=1.0)
    monitor_task = asyncio.create_task(service.run())
    await asyncio.sleep(10)
    await service.stop()
    await monitor_task

asyncio.run(main())

Device identity

USB Inspector uses a device's vendor/product IDs and USB serial number as its preferred identity. When a backend cannot read a serial number temporarily, it uses the USB bus and port path to retain the identity already associated with that physical connection. USB addresses are not treated as stable because they can change when a device re-enumerates.

If a device has no readable serial number and is moved to a different USB port, it is necessarily reported as a new device.

Issues

If you experience any issues, please create an issue on Bitbucket.

Development

To get a list of all commands with descriptions simply run just.

just env
just pip-install-editable

Testing

just pytest
just coverage
just open-coverage

History

All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file. This project adheres to Semantic Versioning.

1.1.0 (2026-08-11)

• FIXED transient USB serial-number read failures no longer create duplicate device records or spurious disconnect/connect events.
• CHANGED device monitoring now reads each serial number once per snapshot and uses the USB bus/port path to preserve an established device identity when the serial is temporarily unavailable.
• ADDED detection of a different serial number at the same USB port as a device replacement.

1.0.0 (2026-05-22)

Breaking changes

• REMOVED USBDeviceMonitor from the public API. Use create_usb_monitoring_service() instead, which returns a USBMonitoringService instance with the same behavior.
• REMOVED standalone free functions lookup_usb_details, delete_usb_db, delete_data_file, and update_usb_db from usb_inspector.usb.infrastructure.repository. Use SQLiteUSBDetailsRepository and USBDatabaseMaintenanceRepository directly.
• CHANGED public API of usb_inspector package now exports USBMonitoringService, USBDetailsLookupPort, and create_usb_monitoring_service. Importing USBDeviceMonitor from the top-level package will raise ImportError. USBEnumeratorPort remains importable from usb_inspector.usb.application.ports.

Other changes

• CHANGED package no longer initialises the USB database on import. Initialisation is now lazy: the database is created on the first call to SQLiteUSBDetailsRepository.lookup() if it does not already exist.
• CHANGED usb_inspector.usb package no longer re-exports USBMonitoringService; import from usb_inspector or usb_inspector.usb.application.service directly.
• CHANGED usb_inspector.usb.infrastructure package now exports only create_usb_monitoring_service; concrete repository classes remain importable from their module.

0.3.1 (2026-04-21)

• CHANGED updated build backend and release tooling configuration.
• CHANGED refreshed Justfile workflows for environment, testing, and release checks.
• CHANGED updated packaging/verification helper scripts and dependency lock maintenance.
• CHANGED updated pre-commit toolchain versions.

0.3.0 (2026-03-13)

• CHANGED refactored package internals to a layered DDD structure under usb_inspector.usb (domain/application/infrastructure/interface).
• CHANGED internal legacy modules db.py, update.py, and cli.py were removed; CLI entry point now resolves to usb_inspector.usb.interface.router:cli.
• CHANGED usb_inspector.monitor remains available as a compatibility shim for USBDeviceMonitor.
• FIXED circular import issues in package initialization/import flow.
• ADDED layered test coverage for application and infrastructure modules plus import regression coverage.

0.2.2 (2025-12-04)

• ADDED tox and more test coverage

0.2.1 (2025-11-21)

• ADDED port to the device info
• CHANGED cleaned up logging on connect/disconnect descriptions

0.2.0 (2025-11-21)

• FIXED Connecting/Disconnecting the same physical device to the same port now correctly identifies the device as the same device on Windows/Linux.

0.1.9 (2025-11-21)

• FIXED Cached sql db lookup so it occurs only once.

0.1.8 (2025-11-20)

• FIXED turned default packaged logging to ERROR. Was INFO...Sorry!

0.1.7 (2025-11-13)

• FIXED is_connected bug introduced in last patch.
• ADDED improved tracking of devices allowing multiple of the same vendor/device ID to be connected.

0.1.6 (2025-11-13)

• FIXED last_seen timestamp for each device, only updates when connected/disonnected.

0.1.5 (2025-11-05)

• Locked pandas to version 2.3.3 for Raspberry Pi compatability (it pulls the pre-built wheel from piwheels.org)

0.1.4 (2025-11-05)

• Added last_seen timestamp for each device.

0.1.4 (2025-10-31)

• update-db cli command only adds new Vendors and Devices to the existing DB rather than requiring deletion and recreation of the DB.
• Track which devices are connected/disconnected.

0.1.2 (2025-10-30)

• Fix lookup error

0.1.1 (2025-10-30)

• Added start as an alias for monitor.

0.1.0 (2025-10-30)

• First release