title: Human Interface Device sharing [HIDAPI]
body: <p>I have a Human Interface Device (HID) that I'm trying to talk to with <a href="http://www.signal11.us/oss/hidapi/" rel="nofollow">HIDAPI</a> and I am having some difficulty talking to it when another program has a handle on the device; namely the device vendor's development software.</p>
  
  <p>The device in question is an RFID Reader which behaves as an HID (not to be confused with HID Corporation, which manufactures RFID products). </p>
  
  <p>I cannot get a handle on the device upon calling <code>hid_open()</code> from HIDAPI only when the vendor's software is open. Otherwise, I have no apparent issues talking to the device. Normally I would think that the device can only be opened by one program at a time. However, considering that a keyboard and a mouse are also considered HIDs (which are shared among multiple programs all the time), I feel like I should be able to access the reader from both my software and the vendor's software. </p>
  
  <p>I don't know much about HIDs, nor USB in general, so I'm sure this is bit of a newb question, but I'm sure somebody will find this useful in the future.</p>