Intent to Implement & Ship: Web Bluetooth exclusionFilters option in requestDevice()
François Beaufort
Contact emails
Explainer
https://github.com/WebBluetoothCG/web-bluetooth/issues/599#issue-1638254435
Specification
https://webbluetoothcg.github.io/web-bluetooth/#ref-for-dom-requestdeviceoptions-exclusionfilters
https://github.com/WebBluetoothCG/web-bluetooth/pull/600
Summary
The "exclusionFilters" option in navigator.bluetooth.requestDevice() allows web developers to exclude some devices from the browser picker. It can be used to exclude devices that match a broader filter but are unsupported.
Blink component
Motivation
Allowing web developers, through the "exclusionFilters" option, to exclude from the browser picker some devices that are not supported by the site will improve user experience. Without it, web developers let users pick a device, then have to check using a custom JavaScript helper function and alert the user after they’ve already selected a device, resulting in a poor user experience.
// Request access to a bluetooth device whose name starts with "Created by".
// The device named "Created by Francois" has been reported as unsupported.
const device = await navigator.bluetooth.requestDevice({
filters: [{ namePrefix: "Created by" }],
exclusionFilters: [{ name: "Created by Francois" }],
});
TAG review
This small addition to the Web Bluetooth API doesn’t seem to qualify for a TAG review. I’m happy to file one if desired though.
TAG review status
Not Applicable
Risks
Interoperability and Compatibility
Older browsers will ignore exclusionFilters and all devices matching the provided filter will be displayed (the current behavior).
Signals from other implementations (Gecko, WebKit):
Gecko: No Signal [1]
WebKit: No Signal [1]
Web / Framework developers: Positive https://stackoverflow.com/questions/75815353/web-bluetooth-want-to-exclude-certain-devices-when-using-navigator-bluetooth-re
[1] Both Gecko and WebKit are unlikely to object to this feature specifically, but object to the overall Web Bluetooth API as a whole, hence it doesn't make sense to bug them with specific questions on this.
Activation:
This feature can't be polyfilled. It should be fairly trivial for developers to adopt this new feature.
Debuggability
No specific DevTools changes are required. This feature is treated like any other JS method.
Note that exposing DevTools debugging support for device-access APIs (Web Bluetooth included) is discussed at https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1142566#c20.
Is this feature fully tested by web-platform-tests?
No, because browser picker implementation is implemented outside of Blink and so isn’t testable fully by web-platform-tests.
Requires code in //chrome?
No.
Tracking bug
https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1427977
Estimated milestones
114
Link to entry on the Chrome Platform Status
https://chromestatus.com/feature/6208474255458304
Alex Russell
François Beaufort
Yoav Weiss
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Mike Taylor
LGTM3, seems like a useful addition.
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