HNTF/Home Network TF Discussions/ServiceUI

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Service User Interface

Submitter: Jean-Claude Dufourd, Telecom ParisTech

Tracker Issue ID: ISSUE-4

Description: An application as an interface to a service: the application provides a remote user interface for a device (light switch, hifi volume control, radio station chooser, etc) or a service on a device (remote control on the media player software on a computer).

Possible implementation:

  • the application discovers services with a discovery protocol, selects one service of a certain expected type, e.g. a media renderer service.
  • the application binds to it and provides a UI for it.
  • on user interaction, the application sends the messages to set the content url to play then play, pause, ... to the media renderer service, with appropriate parameters.

Implementation:

Justification:

There is no standard interface to discovery protocols in existing standards implemented in connected devices, as far as I know. There is no standard interface to service communication protocols in existing standards implemented in connected devices, again AFAIK. What should be standardized is:

  • an interface to get a list of discovered services;
  • an interface to get the list of messages exposed by a discovered service;
  • an interface to send a message to a discovered service;
  • an interface to set a listener for messages from a discovered service.


Dependencies: In order to interface with a service, the application first needs to discover the service (or the device, then the service on the device).

Comments: