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Imagine a world where you can walk up to any connected thing and begin to interact with it via your phone - without an app. The concept of interaction on demand is the core idea of the Physical Web. "People should be able to walk up to any smart device - a vending machine, a poster, a toy, a bus stop, a rental car - and not have to download an app first. Everything should be just a tap away."
As the number of smart devices grows, it is important to have an easy way for people to interact with things at any time. Apps are great, and we all love them - but we are also starting to hate them. It's difficult to manage and find them as their numbers proliferate. Some become obsolete and are no longer supported. And if each device or class of devices needs its own app, we will soon be overrun with apps. This is where the Physical Web comes in. At its base, the Physical Web is a discovery service: a smart object broadcasts relevant URLs that any nearby device can receive.
Google is developing the Physical Web as an early-stage experimental project. They are developing it as an open standard that anyone can use. It is not a Google product.
The Physical Web doesn't require that every 'thing' needs a direct connection to the Internet. With its Bluetooth capability and Internet connectivity, the smartphone can act as a bridge for devices. Consider three cases:
For more information, I suggest you find time to watch a really great video featuring Google's Scott Jenson. It's his closing Keynote from the recent IoT Asia 2015, Building the Physical Web Together, and he does a terrific job of explaining the vision for Physical Web.
Granted, these are all consumer examples, but it seems to me that there may be a great many potential uses for this technology in the industrial space. Let me know what ideas you have!
As the number of smart devices grows, it is important to have an easy way for people to interact with things at any time. Apps are great, and we all love them - but we are also starting to hate them. It's difficult to manage and find them as their numbers proliferate. Some become obsolete and are no longer supported. And if each device or class of devices needs its own app, we will soon be overrun with apps. This is where the Physical Web comes in. At its base, the Physical Web is a discovery service: a smart object broadcasts relevant URLs that any nearby device can receive.
Google is developing the Physical Web as an early-stage experimental project. They are developing it as an open standard that anyone can use. It is not a Google product.
The Physical Web doesn't require that every 'thing' needs a direct connection to the Internet. With its Bluetooth capability and Internet connectivity, the smartphone can act as a bridge for devices. Consider three cases:
- Simple web connection. The device broadcasts one tiny bit of information repeatedly via low power Bluetooth: its web address. The phone can discover the device and connect to its website. In the case of a bus stop, for example, perhaps the website simply delivers information about when the next bus is due to arrive.
- Cloud passthrough. A vending machine, for example, could publish its website using the same technique, but upon reaching the website, you could choose a snack and pay for it through your phone. If the vending machine is directly connected to the Internet, then it could directly receive an authorization to dispense the appropriate snack.
- Direct connect. A parking meter may not be connected to the internet, but could still participate in a transaction similar to the one described above. It could use the same publish and discovery model, and through the phone connect to the unique website and execute a payment transaction. But instead of the site directly authorizing the device, it acts through a java script to communicate to the meter via your phone.
For more information, I suggest you find time to watch a really great video featuring Google's Scott Jenson. It's his closing Keynote from the recent IoT Asia 2015, Building the Physical Web Together, and he does a terrific job of explaining the vision for Physical Web.
Granted, these are all consumer examples, but it seems to me that there may be a great many potential uses for this technology in the industrial space. Let me know what ideas you have!