WebHID on Dedicated Workers

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

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

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

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

View on chromestatus.com