Phidget WebService

General Overview

The Phidget Web Service is a background process that broadcasts all events and data from a USB Phidget over the network:

It uses local link addressing which allows you to use simple server names in your code. The local link addressing is provided by the programs Bonjour, avahi, or mDNSResponder, depending on your system, and the correct program is either installed already or with the Phidget libraries.

You can listen to the Phidget data and control the Phidgets over the network using one or more computers:

Since Phidgets supports many operating systems, the listening and controlling computer doesn't have to be a computer.... it could be an Android phone or an iOS iPhone/iPad:

Webservice on the Phidget Single Board Computer

The Phidget Single Board Computer (SBC) can provide a compact, inexpensive way to easily run the Webservice. It runs the Webservice in the background automatically from the moment you turn it on, and allows you to read from and control all Phidgets attached to it:

This can allow for a compact, mobile-based system like this:

The SBC runs Linux, which provides a full operating system on which to develop code, serve web pages, and control Phidgets.

Using The Webservice

Each Operating System page has a section on how to use the webservice on that operating system:

• Windows
• Mac OS
• Linux
• Linux on the Phidget SBC
• Android
• iPhone/iPad iOS
• Windows CE

The operating systems pages have complete examples on how to set up a running webservice host process and remote program on that operating system. The pages also tell you how to start and stop the Webservice on your computer, and how to run it with or without mDNS (Bonjour, avahi, etc).

We also have a couple of code snippets in C and Java on the General Phidget Programming page to show examples of opening a Phidget remotely.