Resuscitating IoT with JavaScript

OpenJS World, June 23, 2020

Peter Hoddie and Lizzie Prader

We all know IoT has big problems. Its potential to improve our lives has been suffocated by laughable security, lack of respect for privacy, unreliable software, prehistoric user experiences, and limited interoperability. JavaScript has a role to play in solving these problems for IoT as it already has for the web.

Recent engine advances have brought modern JavaScript to inexpensive IoT hardware for the first time. This led Ecma International, the standards body responsible for JavaScript, to create TC53 to define standard software modules for IoT.

This talk introduces work underway to bring JavaScript to IoT at scale including virtualization with Secure ECMAScript, the XS JavaScript engine for resource constrained devices, and Ecma TC53 proposals for standard IoT APIs in JavaScript. These technologies empower web developers to breathe new life into IoT by applying their experience.

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