Identify the 4-character hexadecimal numbers. For example, if your Hardware ID is VID_1B96&PID_0F01 , your numbers are: 1b96 Product ID (productid): 0f01 Step 3: Launch the Emulator with USB Passthrough
Navigate to your Android SDK tools directory (usually located in C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Local\Android\Sdk\emulator on Windows, or ~/Library/Android/sdk/emulator on macOS) and run the following command:
: Use the following command structure to start your emulator with the device attached:
If the command-line approach fails or feels too tedious, Genymotion is a commercial Android emulator built on VirtualBox or QEMU that offers a seamless graphical interface for USB passthrough. Step 1: Install Genymotion and VirtualBox connect usb device to android emulator better
If the emulator can't access the USB port, you may need to add your user to the usb group on Linux (e.g., sudo usermod -aG usb $USER ) or run the emulator with elevated privileges.
: You often need to create a udev rule to allow the emulator to access the /dev/bus/usb/ path without root privileges.
The core technique uses QEMU‘s usb-host device passthrough feature. You‘ll need to identify your USB device‘s unique identifiers first. On Linux or macOS, run: Identify the 4-character hexadecimal numbers
A detailed guide on XDA Developers covers the process for Android 10 through 13, explaining how to “convince Linux to actually let go of the USB-Serial Device”.
Before attempting a connection, ensure your environment is set up for success:
: Install a USB/IP server on your physical computer to "share" the USB device. Guest Setup : You often need to create a udev
If your development project does not strictly require Google's official AVD, alternative emulation layers provide user-friendly GUI features for managing external hardware. Genymotion (Professional Development)
Since the Android emulator is based on QEMU, you can use command-line flags to pass a physical USB device from your host machine directly to the emulator.