WebHID on Dedicated Workers

Category: Device
Type: New or changed feature
Status: Enabled by default (Chrome 131)
Intent stage: None

Breaking change: No
Enterprise impact: None
Chromium flag: enable-experimental-web-platform-features
Spec maturity: Incubation
Web Platform Tests: No

WPT details: WPT are planned, we have some web_tests already but the external web platform tests are minimal and only verify the presence of interfaces and attributes: https://wpt.fyi/results/webhid We have internal web tests that will be converted to WPT: https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/master:third_ and may differ by party/blink/web_tests/hid/

Summary

WebHID is enabled inside dedicated worker contexts. This allows developers to perform heavy I/O and processing of data from a HID device on a separate thread to reduce the performance impact on the main thread.

Motivation

By combining the capabilities of WebHID and dedicated workers, web developers can minimize input latency and ensure a smooth user experience, even with the complexities of specialized gaming hardware.

Standards & signals

Specification: https://wicg.github.io/webhid/#extensions-to-the-workernavigator-interface
Firefox: No signal — [1] Both Gecko and WebKit are unlikely to object to this feature specifically, but object to the overall WebHID API as a whole, hence it doesn't make sense to bug them with specific questions on this.
Safari: No signal — [1] Both Gecko and WebKit are unlikely to object to this feature specifically, but object to the overall WebHID API as a whole, hence it doesn't make sense to bug them with specific questions on this.
Web developers: Positive
Tracking bug: https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/chromium/src/+/5841991

Ecosystem

Web Platform Tests: https://wpt.fyi/results/?q=webhid
Chrome Platform Showcase: https://chrome-platform-showcase.paulkinlan-ea.deno.net/features
GenDN reference: https://gendn.paulkinlan-ea.deno.net/features
chrome.dev demos search: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Achrome.dev+WebHID%20on%20Dedicated%20Workers
MDN Web Docs: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/search?q=WebHID%20on%20Dedicated%20Workers
Baseline status: https://webstatus.dev/?q=WebHID%20on%20Dedicated%20Workers

Samples: https://webhid-worker.glitch.me/

Explainers: https://github.com/WICG/webhid/pull/121

View on chromestatus.com