Inside the emulator's shell:
adb shell
lsusb
If you get lsusb: not found, install busybox or check the emulator's system image. Some Google APIs images lack USB host stack entirely. Use Google Play APIs or AOSP images.
For high-rel scenarios (like a testing lab), install VirtualHere USB Server on Windows and the VirtualHere client inside the emulator (if you can root it). This creates a network tunnel for USB packets.
Pros: Works with any USB class.
Cons: Paid license, requires rooted emulator. connect usb device to android emulator better
At Google I/O 2024, the Android team hinted at a native "USB Forwarding" tool inside the new Emulator UI (version 35.0+). The feature, code-named "USB Bridge", will allow you to:
As of writing (2025), this is in Developer Preview. To enable it:
emulator -avd YourAvd -feature USB_BRIDGE
Once stable, this will become the new "better" default. Until then, use the methods above. Inside the emulator's shell: adb shell lsusb
Solution:
sudo chmod 666 /sys/bus/usb/drivers/usb/unbind
Or better, run your emulator script with sudo.
Google’s emulator on Windows can use UsbDk – a library that intercepts USB requests. If you get lsusb: not found , install
emulator -avd MyAVD -usb-passthrough "vid=046d,pid=c077"
This is better than ADB TCP, but less reliable than Linux.
It’s a nested virtualization overhead, but it’s better than zero support.
Alternatively, use Android Studio’s Canary build with the new "USB Bridge" (experimental as of 2025). Google is slowly adding USB forwarding via Hypervisor.framework, but it’s not production-ready.