Web Thing Protocol Community Group
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Web Thing Protocol Community Group
The mission of this group is to define a common protocol for communicating with connected devices over the web, to enable ad-hoc interoperability on the
Web of Things
Deliverables of the group may include use cases, requirements and specifications.
The group will collaborate with the W3C Web of Things Interest Group and Working Group to ensure any specifications complement or extend the “
Web of Things (WoT) Thing Description
” specification.
Objectives:
Define a WebSocket sub-protocol for the Web of Things, using the W3C “Web of Things (WoT) Thing Description” data model and operations
Define an HTTP protocol binding for the Web of Things (or support the Web of Things Working Group in defining this protocol binding and ensuring consistency with the WebSocket sub-protocol where appropriate)
Evaluate other potential Web of Things protocol bindings (e.g. CoAP)
See the proposed
Community Group Charter
for more information.
w3c/web-thing-protocol/
Group's public email, repo and wiki activity over time
Note: Community Groups are proposed and run by the community. Although W3C hosts these
conversations, the groups do not necessarily represent the views of the W3C Membership or staff.
Final reports /
licensing info
Date
Name
Commitments
2022-08-11
Web Thing Protocol Use Cases & Requirements
Licensing commitments
Drafts /
licensing info
Date
Name
2024-11-21
Web Thing Protocol
Chairs, when logged in, may publish draft and final reports. Please see
report requirements
Call for Implementations: Web Thing Protocol WebSocket Sub-protocol
Ben Francis
Posted on:
November 6, 2025
The
W3C Web Thing Protocol Community Group
is delighted to share the first draft of the
Web Thing Protocol
WebSocket Sub-protocol, a dedicated real-time protocol for the
Web of Things
The Web Thing Protocol provides a WebSocket sub-protocol for monitoring and controlling connected devices over the Web, specifically designed around the Web of Things
information model
. It defines message payload formats for each of the
operation types
defined in the
WoT Thing Description
specification and makes it possible to carry out the full set of WoT operations on one or more WoT Things over a single WebSocket connection.
The Web Thing Protocol is intended to be used by IoT gateways, cloud services, and even directly by connected devices themselves. Often it will likely be used as a web-based abstraction on top of another underlying IoT protocol like Zigbee, Z-Wave, HomeKit, Matter, Modbus or BACnet – to enable an open ecosystem of IoT web services which link together otherwise incompatible IoT platforms.
This first draft has been developed by an active community of
participants
, including contributors from
Siemens
Deutsche Telekom
Krellian
and many other interested parties. It is intended to fulfil the requirements for a
WebSocket sub-protocol
from our previously published
Use Cases & Requirements
report.
The Web Thing Protocol Community Group would now like to encourage implementations of this early draft of the Web Thing Protocol, so that the specification can be improved based on implementation experience and interoperability testing. Please be aware that this is a very early draft of the specification which is likely to undergo significant changes during its incubation in the community group, before hopefully joining a formal standards track at the W3C.
Anyone can join a W3C Community Group for free, so if you are interested in contributing then we encourage you to
join us
to help further refine this powerful new Web of Things protocol. You can read the
latest draft of the specification
, subscribe to our
public mailing list
, file
issues
on GitHub and chat with us in the
#web-thing-protocol
channel on the
Web of Things Community Discord server
. If you intend to implement the specification we’d love it if you could share your “intent to implement” on our mailing list.
As with all W3C specifications the Web Thing Protocol is a royalty free open standard which anyone is free to use, so we can’t wait to see what you do with it!
Call for Contributions: Web Thing Protocol WebSocket Sub-protocol
Ben Francis
Posted on:
November 21, 2024
Having published the
Web Thing Protocol Use Cases & Requirements
community group report, the Web Thing Protocol Community Group has begun work on the first of its core deliverables: the
Web Thing Protocol WebSocket Sub-protocol
specification.
This specification is intended to facilitate the incubation of a dedicated real-time protocol for the
Web of Things
(WoT), to enable a WoT
Consumer
to communicate with one or more WoT
Things
over a
WebSocket
connection in order to monitor and control connected devices over the Web.
The
Web of Things
(WoT) is a collection of standardised technology building blocks that help provide interoperability on the
Internet of Things
(IoT). The
WoT Thing Description
specification defines a metadata format for
describing
the capabilities of “Things” (connected devices) on the Web. The
WoT Discovery
specification defines mechanisms for
discovering
Things on the Web. This specification complements those building blocks by incubating a dedicated real-time protocol for
communicating
with Things over the Web.
The intention is for this specification to eventually join a standards track at the W3C or another standards body.
Following a significant number of comments from Community Group members on an initial
strawman proposal
, we have now started work on the formal
community group report
We encourage contributions to that report
on GitHub
, in the form of
issues
and
pull requests
If you are interested in contributing to or implementing the Web Thing Protocol in your product, service or project we welcome you to join the
Community Group
and share your “intent to implement” on our
public mailing list
You are also welcome to join the
#web-thing-protocol
Discord channel to chat about our work.
Announcing Web Thing Protocol Use Cases & Requirements
Ben Francis
Posted on:
November 1, 2023
The Web Thing Protocol Community Group is pleased to announce the publication of the
Web Thing Protocol Use Cases & Requirements
community group report.
This report defines the requirements for a common protocol for the Web of Things, and is the group’s first published final report. The group will now begin work on its core deliverables, as per the group’s
charter
Web Thing Protocol WebSocket Sub-protocol
Web Thing Protocol HTTP Sub-protocol
We welcome contributions on
GitHub
, and new members joining our
community
and
mailing list
Call for Use Cases & Requirements: Web Thing Protocol
Ben Francis
Posted on:
July 6, 2020
The
Web Thing Protocol Community Group
is seeking input on use cases and requirements for a proposed common sub-protocol for the
Web of Things
. A first draft of a
Use Cases & Requirements report
has been published as a starting point for the conversation.
The proposed Web Thing Protocol specification will define:
An HTTP sub-protocol (REST API) which defines a standard way to communicate with a web thing using the
HTTP
protocol
A WebSocket sub-protocol which defines how to communicate with a web thing over a
WebSocket
Feedback can be submitted via the
Web Thing Protocol CG mailing list
and via issues on the Group’s
GitHub repository
Call for Participation in Web Thing Protocol Community Group
W3C Team
Posted on:
September 17, 2019
The
Web Thing Protocol Community Group
has been launched:
The mission of this group is to define a common protocol for communicating with connected devices over the web, to enable ad-hoc interoperability on the
Web of Things
Deliverables of the group may include use cases, requirements and specifications.
The group will collaborate with the W3C Web of Things Interest Group and Working Group to ensure any specifications complement or extend the “
Web of Things (WoT) Thing Description
” specification.
Objectives:
Define a WebSocket sub-protocol for the Web of Things, using the W3C “Web of Things (WoT) Thing Description” data model and operations
Define an HTTP protocol binding for the Web of Things (or support the Web of Things Working Group in defining this protocol binding and ensuring consistency with the WebSocket sub-protocol where appropriate)
Evaluate other potential Web of Things protocol bindings (e.g. CoAP)
See the proposed
Community Group Charter
for more information.
In order to
join the group
, you will need a
W3C account
. Please note, however, that
W3C Membership
is not required to join a Community Group.
This is a community initiative. This group was originally proposed on 2019-09-16 by Ben Francis. The following people supported its creation: Ben Francis, Gustavo Zapico, Junde Yhi, Zoltan Kis, Dave Raggett. W3C’s hosting of this group does not imply endorsement of the activities.
The group must now
choose a chair
. Read more about
how to get started in a new group
and
good practice for running a group
We invite you to share news of this new group in social media and other channels.
If you believe that there is an issue with this group that requires the attention of the W3C staff, please email us at
site-comments@w3.org
Thank you,
W3C Community Development Team
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