Almost four years ago @reillyeon pushed the first commit for the webusb spec
https://github.com/WICG/webusb/commit/a21c17674e99c2dba23e168a26e4730bc4032f64 … making it possible for websites to talk directly to USB devices.
when it launched it had minor fanfare but most people were unclear on the use-cases.https://venturebeat.com/2017/09/05/chrome-61-arrives-with-javascript-modules-and-webusb-support/ …
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Along the same time as
@reillyeon pushed the initial version into chrome@sowbug created a new project called weblight https://github.com/sowbug/weblight As a playground example of what you can do with webusb.pic.twitter.com/nODvar1zCW
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Me being me... decided to utilize Mike's work to show our tip of tree build status via a combination of Mike’s weblight board and some 3D printing foo... This was the first time I dipped my toe into webusb landpic.twitter.com/mbd2f15Ul3
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It was at this point that things got interesting. Android Platform developers always have needed a way to build their code and flash it to their device. This process classically required developers to run a magic sequence of adb commands to update their phone.
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Recognizing the pain my manager in circa 2008~ wrote a wxpython application which ran on a few machines in the office where people could plug in their phone, press a button and "flash" their device without having to run local commands.pic.twitter.com/9MfPomlqhu
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This application had many iterations and eventually could be run even on a developers local machine... but this approach had many problems.. wxpython needed special bits installed on the machine.. and those with chromebooks could not use it at all. :(pic.twitter.com/3qunuVD7Mb
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In 2014~ an intern at google did a project where they utilized the chrome app's USB API to build a basic version of ADB in JavaScript https://developer.chrome.com/apps/usb This project acted as an initial experimental proof of concept but never quite took off due to ACL limitations.
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This brings us to late 2016~ where work started in earnest to utilize the emerging web USB standard to implement ADB https://developer.android.com/studio/command-line/adb … in JavaScript and then recreating the flashing logic on top of it. In Sep of 2017 we were able to unlock the dream of a web based flow.
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With the push to expose our internal http://ci.android.com ecosystem to the OSS community and partner ecosystem I am thrilled that a critical part of this (http://flash.android.com ) is now live! * Credential API * Web USB API * PWA (installable) *
@____lighthouse 100/100pic.twitter.com/T98Ul5Vrlv
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(and yes you can flash a phone from another phone) Congrats to the team that made this possible and thanks for the support
@reillyeon and@ChromiumDev /finShow this thread
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Flash an AOSP build without having to build and flash manually! You can now do so directly from the browser with the newly released Android Flash Tool.
Check out Android Flash Tool →