Slashdot Mirror
Obtaining a USB Vendor/Product ID?
Qeygh asks: "I am interested in developing some hardware devices for my own use and, since RS-232 is dying, would like to use USB to communicate with them. If they work out well I may offer kits for sale. To do this right I should get a USB Vendor ID so that the devices can be uniquely identified by the host; but, being cheap, I don't want to drop the $1500 that USB.org charges for one. Does anyone know of any alternatives -- perhaps someone who bought a Vendor ID and re-sells small blocks of Product IDs? If no-one out there is doing this yet, is it a service that anyone else would use?"
... then, make an investment for the 'business' you will make from this, and pay the $1500 to get your own Vendor ID.
... there is a door fee, and that door fee is $1500.
Shirking out of paying a vendor ID when you want to sell product based on USB is just stupid. USB requires a unique vendor ID, that database of vendor ID's needs to be maintained and administered, and the cost for that is $1500. Fair enough, welcome to business.
Pay the fee, if you're going to sell kits. It is the only thing that makes sense. You want to use USB, well
If you're not going to sell kits, you don't need your own Vendor ID. Just use nulls for everything, or make one up for your own lab purposes.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
This seems to be your best bet. Doesn't look like it would be much of a problem to set up a program and sell or give PID's away though. But, what's to stop random developers from "barrowing" them and causing a difficult to diagnose problem down the line, should you pursue it?
# lsusb
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 4242:2469/40 International Widget Sdn Bhd. FTL469 Hyper Communicator
#
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
...do usb.org have a "free for all" equivalent to the IANA reserved address space (192.168/16, 172.16/12, 10/8)?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I suspect you won't make friends by doing this, but I also suspect the value you choose won't be sold to anyone else. :-)
My project doesn't have the funds to get our own VID yet either. So instead we are picking one out of thin air. Since our particular device requires a EEPROM anyway we decided that if it ever becomes popular enough to worry about, we can issue a firmware update that re-writes our VID to the official one.
;)
Just don't use 0x8086 since we all know who has that one...
You could the few IDs that are set aside for testing and are not supposed to be used in reatil things. It's perfectly fine if you make stuff for your use, but when you do start selling the things you'd need to get a real one.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
A lot of times, the manufacturer of the USB chipset you're using will sublet their product ID's for free or nominal cost. (example: Answer 3, part 2). They're happy to sell parts, and it costs them only 1.1 cents a year per PID (they've got a block of 64k; that's a lot of numbers)
Also, correction to Qeygh's original question: it's not just $1500, it's $1500 every two years, for just the numbers Or you can join the USB org for $2500/year and get the numbers for free!
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
I'd recommend buying a USB-RS232 chip.
USB is USB - just a lot of specs to follow and nothing innovative.
It gives you time to concentrate on 'your own' hardware, which after all is what you want.
You get to use the vendors device drivers and VID, and get a couple of PIDs for your own use.
My company has worked quite a bit with FTDI.
They make reliable chips (AFAIKT), and give excellent support.
No sig to see here. Move along.
Who needs a USB logo? If I were selling USB gear, I sure as hell wouldn't pay $750 a year for the use of some stupid logo (especially considering how obfuscated the USB logo is now with USB 2.0 High-Speed, Full-Speed, Low-Speed, Speed-Speed, Slow-Speed. F*ck that.
My product would have a big red circle, with white letters saying "USB" in the middle. 95% of consumers wouldn't notice the difference.
It won't make anyone happy, but pick an ID that is not in use, start using it, and send them a registered letter stating that you are using it, and have no intention of paying them for the priviledge. Such makes it more likely that it will actually get read by someone who would care.
They don't want collisions as much as you do..
SSL Certificate
just build your device with a bank of dip switches to let the user pick a usb id. anything that is not already on the chain should be ok.
Sounds like it would be easy enough (assuming you could keep USB-org lawyers off your back, if they're against this sort of thing) to set up a sort of 'umbrella company' that pays the $1500 for a VID, then sublicenses individual Product IDs for much less, maybe $5. (The $1500 buys you a VID, which allows you to then make up 0xFFFF (65,536) PIDs for individual devices.)
One could set up a Universal USB Tinkerers Association, or something like that, specifically for this purpose.
Not to say you necessarily should drop the $1500 yourself - this sounds like a simple enough idea, surely someone has done it already, and all you'd have to do is find them.
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
When we bought 8 USB interface chips from FTDI via our local distributor, we got 8 id's for free [FT232BM (serial) or FT245BM (parallel)]. And there are drivers for many os-es for. I'm a member of an association for amateur research for embedded systems however.