3 ms·

I fail to see some good use cases, does anyone have any examples of useful usages for this API? The example in the draft is for a heart rate monitor, but that w

by tarikjn 10y ago

I fail to see some good use cases, does anyone have any examples of useful usages for this API? The example in the draft is for a heart rate monitor, but that would seem only useful for live monitoring. Other things I can think of would be game controllers, but they may not necessarily be bluetooth, and could be mapped to standard input.

X-Cubed 10y ago
A good use I can think of is for my TomTom Spark GPS watch, which I use to track my running. I need to use either the mobile or desktop apps to upload the data to see all the details, but these custom apps could be replaced with a web page.
qdot76367 10y ago
First off, it solves the problem of not having to deal with a ton of platform specific apis. See https://kyle.machul.is/2016/11/07/talking-bluetooth-le-on-desktop-in-2016/ https://kyle.machul.is/2016/11/07/talking-bluetooth-le-on-de... for more info on how much fun that is. If you want specifics, it's great for Bluetooth enabled adult toys. We haven't been seeing much in the way of non-mobile software for toy control, and webbluetooth makes it much easier to write the same code for all platforms. I've written a demo for controlling the lovense Hush via Webbluetooth in Chrome 54, and while the message round-trip time leaves something to be desired (at least on os x, where it's 150ms or so between messages, which means trying to send vibration patterns doesn't work very well), it does "just work" at least.
- stephenr 10y ago
  > it's great for Bluetooth enabled adult toys Right, because the killer feature that stops everyone adopting teledildonics is that its currently App based, and wheres the fun in robo-fucking someone without the thrill of XSS, script kiddies replacing javascript files on unsecured web servers, or just the average javascript developer's code quality.
IshKebab 10y ago
Combined with the Physical Web you can do really cool things like interacting with physical stuff without downloading an app. Think parking meters, vending machines, ticket machines, art installations (e.g. there's one where you can play snake on fountains), museum exhibits, building controls (lights, air conditioning, etc.).
- akerro 10y ago
  >downloading an app. I still need a browser, depending on what I use, still have to download it.
  - herpad 10y ago
    Just for the sake of argument, you will download the necessary browser how exactly?
    - stephenr 10y ago
      Well it could be that the browser that ships with the OS doesn't support "All your keyboards are belong to us". Sorry. Web Bluetooth.
    - akerro 10y ago
      Fdroid, why?
dspillett 10y ago
> I fail to see some good use cases I can imagine a few, though I'm not sure any of them are killer apps (i.e. something that can't be done some better way). * Health monitoring wearables as already mentioned * Displaying information on wearables (assuming the BLE the APIs support that) * For non-mobile use, perhaps proximity based security tags (for instance a kiosk where you want any admin functions to automatically close/lock but you don't want the whole machine to lock) * Direct access to BLE based second-factor security tokens (NFC should already cover this but I've not seen it work terribly reliably so it could be more attractive if this way works better and/or is more widely supported)
follower 10y ago
I've used the Web Bluetooth API for three projects so far: 1) A friend had developed a custom LED-lighting device and written an iOS app to control it (to change colour, brightness etc) but I had an Android device. I wrote a single file "app" to control it from my Android device--much quicker than using Android Studio or even React Native (which I tried for a later project). At a minimum a great way to prototype interfaces for new devices. 2) A colleague and I implemented an alternative single file web app for controlling a Bluetooth LE adult toy device when we discovered the original mobile app for the device was sending real-time usage data to the manufacturer without notifying users. We presented on this work at DEF CON this year. Links to the presentation video and source here: http://www.privateplayaccord.com/ http://www.privateplayaccord.com/ 3) Based on the previous work, I wrote a hacky demo combining A-Frame VR and Web Bluetooth to create a Google Cardboard experience that involves following a robot around a scene and receiving..."positive feedback" when you catch it: https://github.com/privateplayaccord/robot-joy-factory-vr https://github.com/privateplayaccord/robot-joy-factory-vr The last project I think is the best example of why Web Bluetooth is an intriguing development--it makes adding interactions with external hardware much more accessible to developers and provides the potential for a much smoother on-boarding process with new hardware. There are clearly security implications with exposing this functionality and the standard does provide feature restrictions (e.g. web pages must be local or HTTPS; block lists for certain device types/characteristics) in consideration of this. Will all implementations be foolproof? Probably not. Some notes from my Web Bluetooth development experiences if you want more detail: http://www.labradoc.com/i/follower/p/notes-web-bluetooth http://www.labradoc.com/i/follower/p/notes-web-bluetooth I found this a super nice tool for getting started as it handles a lot of boilerplate: https://beaufortfrancois.github.io/sandbox/web-bluetooth/generator/ https://beaufortfrancois.github.io/sandbox/web-bluetooth/gen...
- stephenr 10y ago
  The first two are essentially use-cases for one of the existing Cordova/PhoneGap Bluetooth modules.

by tarikjn 10y ago

X-Cubed 10y ago

A good use I can think of is for my TomTom Spark GPS watch, which I use to track my running. I need to use either the mobile or desktop apps to upload the data to see all the details, but these custom apps could be replaced with a web page.

qdot76367 10y ago

First off, it solves the problem of not having to deal with a ton of platform specific apis. See https://kyle.machul.is/2016/11/07/talking-bluetooth-le-on-desktop-in-2016/ https://kyle.machul.is/2016/11/07/talking-bluetooth-le-on-de... for more info on how much fun that is. If you want specifics, it's great for Bluetooth enabled adult toys. We haven't been seeing much in the way of non-mobile software for toy control, and webbluetooth makes it much easier to write the same code for all platforms. I've written a demo for controlling the lovense Hush via Webbluetooth in Chrome 54, and while the message round-trip time leaves something to be desired (at least on os x, where it's 150ms or so between messages, which means trying to send vibration patterns doesn't work very well), it does "just work" at least.

stephenr 10y ago
> it's great for Bluetooth enabled adult toys Right, because the killer feature that stops everyone adopting teledildonics is that its currently App based, and wheres the fun in robo-fucking someone without the thrill of XSS, script kiddies replacing javascript files on unsecured web servers, or just the average javascript developer's code quality.

IshKebab 10y ago

Combined with the Physical Web you can do really cool things like interacting with physical stuff without downloading an app. Think parking meters, vending machines, ticket machines, art installations (e.g. there's one where you can play snake on fountains), museum exhibits, building controls (lights, air conditioning, etc.).

akerro 10y ago
>downloading an app. I still need a browser, depending on what I use, still have to download it.
- herpad 10y ago
  Just for the sake of argument, you will download the necessary browser how exactly?
  - stephenr 10y ago
    Well it could be that the browser that ships with the OS doesn't support "All your keyboards are belong to us". Sorry. Web Bluetooth.
  - akerro 10y ago
    Fdroid, why?

dspillett 10y ago

> I fail to see some good use cases I can imagine a few, though I'm not sure any of them are killer apps (i.e. something that can't be done some better way). * Health monitoring wearables as already mentioned * Displaying information on wearables (assuming the BLE the APIs support that) * For non-mobile use, perhaps proximity based security tags (for instance a kiosk where you want any admin functions to automatically close/lock but you don't want the whole machine to lock) * Direct access to BLE based second-factor security tokens (NFC should already cover this but I've not seen it work terribly reliably so it could be more attractive if this way works better and/or is more widely supported)

follower 10y ago

I've used the Web Bluetooth API for three projects so far: 1) A friend had developed a custom LED-lighting device and written an iOS app to control it (to change colour, brightness etc) but I had an Android device. I wrote a single file "app" to control it from my Android device--much quicker than using Android Studio or even React Native (which I tried for a later project). At a minimum a great way to prototype interfaces for new devices. 2) A colleague and I implemented an alternative single file web app for controlling a Bluetooth LE adult toy device when we discovered the original mobile app for the device was sending real-time usage data to the manufacturer without notifying users. We presented on this work at DEF CON this year. Links to the presentation video and source here: http://www.privateplayaccord.com/ http://www.privateplayaccord.com/ 3) Based on the previous work, I wrote a hacky demo combining A-Frame VR and Web Bluetooth to create a Google Cardboard experience that involves following a robot around a scene and receiving..."positive feedback" when you catch it: https://github.com/privateplayaccord/robot-joy-factory-vr https://github.com/privateplayaccord/robot-joy-factory-vr The last project I think is the best example of why Web Bluetooth is an intriguing development--it makes adding interactions with external hardware much more accessible to developers and provides the potential for a much smoother on-boarding process with new hardware. There are clearly security implications with exposing this functionality and the standard does provide feature restrictions (e.g. web pages must be local or HTTPS; block lists for certain device types/characteristics) in consideration of this. Will all implementations be foolproof? Probably not. Some notes from my Web Bluetooth development experiences if you want more detail: http://www.labradoc.com/i/follower/p/notes-web-bluetooth http://www.labradoc.com/i/follower/p/notes-web-bluetooth I found this a super nice tool for getting started as it handles a lot of boilerplate: https://beaufortfrancois.github.io/sandbox/web-bluetooth/generator/ https://beaufortfrancois.github.io/sandbox/web-bluetooth/gen...

stephenr 10y ago
The first two are essentially use-cases for one of the existing Cordova/PhoneGap Bluetooth modules.