Generic Peripheral (Minimum & Additional) Specifications

Version: 2.0
Last updated: 2026-03-19

Overview

This specification document is divided into two sections:

  1. Minimum requirements describe the criteria for a peripheral category to be compatible with ChromeOS.

  2. Extended requirements describe the criteria for certification.

This document applies to all peripherals.

Legend

Product Verb Development Action
"MUST" Mandatory product requirement
"SHOULD" Optional recommendation
"MAY" Nice to have

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS

Connectivity

Wireless Dongle

  • If a peripheral is packaged together with a receiver, then the peripheral MUST work without any user interaction with the packaged receiver.

  • If a receiver is packaged with the peripheral, it MUST work out of the box ONLY with the packaged peripheral.

Bluetooth

Wired

  • If the peripheral supports either on device USB-C receptacle or captive cable with USB-C plug, the wired peripheral MUST comply with the Connectors specifications.

Software

Vendor and Product IDs

  • The vendor ID reported by the peripheral over all protocols MUST belong to the manufacturer.

  • The vendor/product ID combinations(s) reported by the peripheral MUST be unique from other peripheral models.

  • If variants of the same peripheral model have different HID descriptors, each variation of HID descriptor MUST map to a unique product ID.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS

Along with the requirements described in the Minimum requirements section, a peripheral MUST meet below mandatory requirements to achieve certification.

Firmware Updater

  • [Mandatory] A Bluetooth/wireless peripheral MUST support firmware updatability.

  • [Mandatory] A peripheral bundled with a dongle mouse MUST support firmware updatability.

Connectivity

Wireless Dongle

  • [Optional] The wireless peripheral MAY allow the user to associate the peripheral with non bundled receivers.

  • [Optional] The receiver MAY allow the user to associate another wireless peripheral with the receiver.

  • [Optional] The peripheral MAY rely on an app for user-initiated association with other receivers.

  • [Optional] The receiver MAY rely on an app for user-initiated association with other peripherals.

  • [Mandatory] If an app is required to alter peripheral/receiver association, then the app MUST run on ChromeOS.

Wired peripheral

  • [Mandatory] If a peripheral supports USB transport, it MUST meet Connector specifications(cc-connectors-v1)

Revision History

Date Version Notes
2026-03-19 2.0 Update documentation
2024-02-01 1.0.1 Initial publication on Google Developers platform.
2023-08-18 1.0 Initial publication.