Intent to Prototype: Web Serial support for Bluetooth RFCOMM services
Ajay Rahatekar
Contact emails
mattre...@chromium.org, melh...@chromium.org
Explainer
https://github.com/WICG/serial/blob/main/EXPLAINER_BLUETOOTH.md
Specification
In progress
Summary
Support Bluetooth RFCOMM services in the Web Serial API. The Bluetooth RFCOMM (Radio frequency communication) protocol provides emulated RS-232 serial ports. This feature would enable applications to make connections to RFCOMM services on paired Bluetooth Classic devices using the Web Serial API.
Blink component
Motivation
1. Allow access to serial ports on Chrome platforms that do not map Bluetooth serial port services to serial device nodes (i.e. COM or /dev/*).
2. Allow access to Bluetooth RFCOMM services with custom (non-standard) UUIDs.
Initial public proposal
https://discourse.wicg.io/t/proposal-web-serial-api-bluetooth-support/5700
TAG review
https://github.com/w3ctag/design-reviews/issues/854
TAG review status
Pending
Interoperability and Compatibility
Gecko: Negative (https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/687) Previous thread: https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/336
WebKit: Negative (https://github.com/WebKit/standards-positions/issues/199) See also: https://webkit.org/tracking-prevention/
Web developers: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1043300.
Multiple Web developers have asked for this privately.
Other signals:
WebView application risks
N/A
Debuggability
Debuggability is identical to wired serial ports.
Is this feature fully tested by web-platform-tests?
No, the majority of this extension to the API is implemented in the browser process (connecting to Bluetooth devices through the native platform APIs) and so isn’t testable with WPT.
Flag name
chrome://flags#enable-bluetooth-spp-in-serial-api
Requires code in //chrome?
Yes, for UI and permissions management.
Tracking bug
https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1043300
Launch bug
https://launch.corp.google.com/launch/4232649
Estimated milestones
For Dev Trial: M116
For Shipping: M117
Link to entry on the Chrome Platform Status
https://chromestatus.com/feature/5686596809523200
Links to previous Intent discussions
This intent message was generated by Chrome Platform Status.
Ajay Rahatekar
Interoperability and Compatibility
Web Serial API is only implemented in Chromium. Other browser vendors have expressed negative views regarding the API and are unlikely to implement it.
This feature will not affect compatibility in existing apps. The feature only adds support for connecting to new types of devices. There are no changes for currently-supported devices.