Accessories

Accessories are where an inventory quietly falls apart. They’re small, they get swapped between headsets, and a surprising number of them carry their own serial number — a stylus, an Elite Strap, a dock, and a base station are each a separate item a vendor will ask you to identify.

The rule we use:

• It has a serial → it can be its own asset, and it should be if it’s expensive or gets loaned on its own.
• It has no serial → it’s a kit item. Record it as a count in the parent asset’s notes, not as a phantom asset with a made-up number.

Where a line below says check rather than naming an exact spot, the manufacturer publishes nothing and we haven’t confirmed it on our own unit — photograph what you find and tell us so this page can be made specific.

Controllers

Every controller has a different serial from its headset. If controllers stay with their headset, put both serials in the headset asset’s notes; if they get swapped around (they will), log them separately.

Pens and styluses

We have a lot of these, and they’re the accessory most likely to walk off.

• Logitech MX Ink — Logitech publishes no serial location. Check the barrel near the charging contacts, the underside of the charging dock, and the box label. With fifty units, do this once carefully and then log the batch: a spreadsheet import with a serial column beats fifty trips through the web form. See Importing from a spreadsheet .
• Logitech VR Ink Pilot Edition — same approach; these shipped as a labeled dev kit, so the box is the most reliable source if it’s still around.

The charging dock is a separate item that comes with its own label. Log the dock with the stylus, or you’ll end up with styluses that can’t be charged.

Head straps and comfort accessories

• Meta Quest Elite Strap and Elite Strap with Battery — these carry a 14-character serial and/or a 7-character date code. On the Quest 3 Elite Strap with Battery, the serial is printed on the inside-facing surface of the right side. As with the headsets, the numbers on the box are not the strap’s serial. The battery version is expensive enough to be its own asset.
• Third-party straps (BoboVR, Kiwi, and similar) — no serial. Kit item.
• Vive Deluxe Audio Strap — check the inside of the strap arm; it’s a serialized part on some production runs.
• Prescription lens inserts — no serial, and they’re cut for one person’s prescription. Label the case with the asset tag of the headset they live with, and note whose prescription it is.
• Face cushions, silicone covers, foam replacements — consumables. Don’t inventory them individually.

Base stations and tracking hardware

• SteamVR Base Station 2.0 — the serial is on the back of the unit, top-right corner, marked SN.
• Base Station 1.0 / Lighthouse — label on the back or underside.
• Vive Trackers — underside label, around the ¼-20 mounting thread. Each is its own serial; with eight of them, log them individually.
• Tracker dongles — no useful serial. Count them as kit items against the trackers; a tracker without its dongle is dead weight.

Base stations mounted in a room belong to the room, not to a person. Record them against the location rather than checking them in and out.

Power, docks, and charging

• Quest charging docks — label on the underside.
• Battery packs and power banks — most carry a serial on the underside label; the good ones are worth logging.
• Dell docks (WD and TB series) — these have their own Dell Service Tag on the underside label. They’re genuine assets, they cost real money, and they migrate between desks. Log them. See Dell and Alienware for how the Service Tag works.
• USB hubs and KVMs — check the underside label; many have none.
• Laptop power adapters — a part number, rarely a unique serial. Kit item with the laptop.
• UPS units — serial on the rear label, and usually visible in whatever monitoring software the unit reports to.

Cables

Link cables, DisplayPort and HDMI runs, USB-C cables, headset tethers: no serials. Don’t create assets for them. Note the count and type in the kit, and keep the expensive ones (fibre-optic Link cables, Vive 5m cables) named in the parent asset’s notes so a missing one is obvious at return.

The one exception in our gear is the Vive Pro link box, which is serialized — see HTC Vive .

External drives and storage

Drives carry a real serial, and it’s readable in software on every platform:

Get-PhysicalDisk | Select-Object FriendlyName, SerialNumber      # Windows

lsblk -o NAME,MODEL,SERIAL                                        # Linux, no root needed
sudo smartctl -i /dev/sda                                         # Linux, full detail
system_profiler SPNVMeDataType SPUSBDataType                      # macOS
camcontrol identify /dev/ada0                                     # FreeBSD

The label on the enclosure has it too, but the enclosure and the drive inside can be different serials — record the one the OS reports, since that’s the one that shows up in a backup log or a SMART alert.

SD cards and USB sticks: no practical serial. Consumables.

Keyboards, mice, and audio

Label on the underside. Razer Synapse (Windows) and Logi Options+ report device information for their own peripherals, which is easier than reading the bottom of a mouse. Unifying and Bolt receivers have no serial — consumables.

Barcode printer and scanner

• Zebra ZD421 — serial on the rear or underside label. It can also print its own configuration label, which includes the serial and firmware version; that’s the reliable route when the printer is stacked under something. See Labels and scanning .
• Handheld scanner — underside label; most models can also scan a command barcode from their manual to report firmware and serial.

Accessories with no serial at all

Don’t invent a number and don’t leave the item untracked. Two options:

1. Kit item — record it as a count in the parent asset’s notes (“2× Touch Plus, 1× charging dock, 1× fabric case”). This is right for anything that only makes sense with its parent.
2. Its own asset with a blank Serial — right for anything valuable that circulates on its own. Give it an asset tag and a label; the tag becomes its identity.

The kit rule

A “Quest 3 kit” is a headset, two controllers, a charger, and a case. Log the headset as the asset, put the controller serials and accessory counts in its notes, and give a separate asset record to anything expensive enough to lose on its own — an Elite Strap with Battery, an MX Ink stylus, a dock, a tracker, a drive.

When a kit comes back short, the notes are what tell you what’s missing. Write them properly the first time.