Web Bluetooth getAvailability()

Category: Device
Type: New or changed feature
Status: Enabled by default (Chrome 78)
Intent stage: Evaluate readiness to ship

Breaking change: No
Enterprise impact: None
Spec maturity: Incubation
Web Platform Tests: Yes

WPT details: The change that implements this API contains WPT. https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/chromium/src/+/1651516

Summary

getAvailability() returns a promise that resolves with true if the user agent is running on a system that has a Bluetooth radio and false otherwise. The powered state of the Bluetooth radio does not influence the availability because applications can prompt users to turn on the radio using requestDevice(). The availabilitychanged event can be used to detect changes in the availability of the Bluetooth radio.

Motivation

This API is useful for developers to know whether they should show UI for Web Bluetooth or not to the user.

Standards & signals

Specification: https://webbluetoothcg.github.io/web-bluetooth/#dom-bluetooth-getavailability
Firefox: Negative
Safari: No signal
Web developers: No signals — I haven't found anything mentioning getAvailability() specifically. However, Web Bluetooth in general does have support from developers.
Tracking bug: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=707640

Ecosystem

Web Platform Tests: https://wpt.fyi/results/?q=web-bluetooth-getavailability
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+Web%20Bluetooth%20getAvailability()
MDN Web Docs: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/search?q=Web%20Bluetooth%20getAvailability()
Baseline status: https://webstatus.dev/?q=Web%20Bluetooth%20getAvailability()

Docs: https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/chromium/src/+/1651516

Samples: https://googlechrome.github.io/samples/web-bluetooth/availability.html https://googlechrome.github.io/samples/web-bluetooth/availability-async-await.html

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