During the past week we tried out WebSockets to monitor and control devices on the field. In 2008 we presented at SVG Open Day an implementation based on SVG and AJAX that, using polling, monitor and control a lego MindStorm – http://www.svgopen.org/2008/papers/47-Real_time_monitor_in_SVG_a_use_case_in_Machining_Technology_HMI.

During these years technology is evolved passing to Comet and now to WebSockets. In 2010 we tested WebSockets but aren’t not so well support as are now. Kaazing Company – http://www.kaazing.com – has proposed on the market a WebSocket gateway really interesting and easy to integrate.

We’ve tried the HTML5 edition modifying the Lego Mindstorms SVG page built on 2008, that monitors and controls lego, with the Kaazing WebSocket library and jQuery. In the video above two examples.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF-qf1P4Q48

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJSZ-00CBQM

WebSockets are leveraging the messaging systems to the Web helping companies to move from desktop applications to more reliable and device independent web applications. These new kind of end user application can be used now also in the industrial world without compromise the user experience.