Re: Browser as an universal client for IoT

Just to chime in on this thread, my project, the Physical Web allows the
browser to find URLs around you. At the moment, it is limited to BLE but
we're also experimenting with Wifi. Combine this with the W3C standard on
WebBluetooth and you have a webclient that can detect and interact with
devices as you approach them.

To be clear, this doesn't touch ZigBee or Weave protocols, it only applies
to Wifi/BLE but it has a huge advantage: you can walk and and interact with
anything without ever having installed an app ahead of time.

The other issue to consider is that this is entirely foreground scanning.
This is about finding/setting/interacting with devices. There is a
potential roadmap to background scanning however. If we can get support
from the OS for battery efficient BLE background scanning, it would not be
hard at all to extend Service Worker events to include beacon events. This
*would* allow background JS to run when you are in proximity of a device.

Again, I want to stress this may not be a perfect fit but my point is that
nothing is. The superpower of the web is interaction on demand, that seems
like a great thing to bring to IoT.

Scott


  Scott Jenson   |   Chrome UX  | scottj@google.com | +1 650 265-7174

On Mon, Oct 24, 2016 at 4:09 AM, Christian Groves <
Christian.Groves@nteczone.com> wrote:

> There's another option to integrate with browser by using the WebRTC
> browser framework. I've written an IETF draft on the transport of CoAP over
> WebRTC data channels, https://datatracker.ietf.org/d
> oc/draft-groves-coap-webrtcdc/ for those that are interested.
>
> Christian
>
>
> On 23/09/2016 6:32 PM, Dave Raggett wrote:
>
>> In the short term we can use a browser extension for the discovery of a
>> gateway/hub, and then use HTTP and WebSockets to communicate with it.  I
>> have a JavaScript library that uses HTTP to download thing descriptions and
>> WebSockets for the thing messaging.  The library exposes an API to create
>> software objects in the web page scripting environment from as proxies for
>> remote things, starting from the URI for the thing description.
>>
>> I want to work on a further experiment in which you visit a website and
>> click on a link to install a service on your gateway/hub. A browser
>> extension is used to pass the URI for installing the service from the
>> website. This discovers the gateway/hub and passes it the installation URI.
>> The extension further handles the user experience for requesting the user’s
>> permission, including logging into the gateway/hub.  The gateway/hub is
>> implemented in NodeJS. A related idea is a thing on the gateway/hub that
>> exposes a management interface. This would for instance, provide a means
>> for users to provide credentials for services to connect to the designated
>> cloud services and for updating the user’s smart home services
>> automatically or manually.
>>
>> p.s. I have already implemented an mDNS client in C++ for the Arduino so
>> that IoT devices can discover the gateway when booting up. This uses the
>> Arduino Ethernet controller, but could be extended to work with say the
>> ESP8266 wifi shield.
>>
>> On 23 Sep 2016, at 16:35, Jason Proctor <jason@mono.hm <mailto:
>>> jason@mono.hm>> wrote:
>>>
>>> this is our approach too -- run web/websockets servers on the Things and
>>> use mDNS to find them. works great for us, at least!
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Sep 23, 2016 at 2:02 AM, 전종홍 <hollobit@etri.re.kr <mailto:
>>> hollobit@etri.re.kr>> wrote:
>>>
>>>     Hi All,
>>>
>>>     I’d like to propose one of different view point for WoT.
>>>
>>>     I think we need to start to find the way how can we use the web
>>>     client(UA or browser) as an universal IoT client.
>>>
>>>     http://www.slideshare.net/hollobit/web-browser-as-universal-
>>> client-for-iot
>>>     <http://www.slideshare.net/hollobit/web-browser-as-universal
>>> -client-for-iot>
>>>
>>>     How do you think about starting the idea scratch actions for web
>>>     client as IoT browser in the WoT IG ?
>>>
>>>     Best Regards,
>>>
>>>     — Jonathan Jeon
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> —
>>    Dave Raggett <dsr@w3.org <mailto:dsr@w3.org>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>