[wg/das] Devices and Sensors Working Group 2026 Charter

[himorin]

New charter proposal, reviewers please take note.

Charter Review

Charter

diff from charter template

Expected end of charter refinement phase: 2026-05-31

If applicable:

diff from previous charter

chair dashboard

What kind of charter is this? Check the relevant box / remove irrelevant branches.

• Existing

• Existing WG recharter

Horizontal Reviews: apply the Github label "Horizontal review requested" to request reviews for accessibility (a11y), internationalization (i18n), privacy, security, and TAG. Also add a "card" for this issue to the Strategy Funnel.

Communities suggested for outreach

Known or potential areas of concern

Where would charter proponents like to see issues raised? (this strategy funnel issue, a different github repo, email, ...)

• Recommendation from "W3C Council Report on the Formal Objection Against Vibration API Obsoletion (Round 2)"

Anything else we should think about as we review?

Note: proposed chairs should be copied @... on this issue.

/cc @anssiko @reillyeon

Note: The Technical Strategy Team Lead or Project & Process Team Lead will assign the issue to a Charter Facilitator for new charters. For rechartering, the team contact is the Charter Facilitator by default, please assign the issue to them directly.

[himorin]

Notes:

• As for 2025-Nov-11, draft charter is not developed yet, just copied from current running charter with alignment to current charter template (also see notes in PR)
• draft charter development is scheduled at DAS WG meeting at TPAC 2025 2025-Nov-13 afternoon JST

[anssiko]

Proposed change: w3c/charter-drafts#731

[himorin]

coming from TPAC 2025 meeting (long time passed than expected, sorry!), my task for listing tasks for finalizing draft charter, if you have any additional (or can take some) please add or pick @anssiko @reillyeon

• [PR-added] develop text for new Motivation and Background section, picked up from leading description or Scope [wg/das] added motivation and background text charter-drafts#761
• check list of deliverable with current WG working items
• [PR-added] update status (draft state, reference links, exclusion) of deliverables [wg/das] updated links and dates in metadata of deliverables charter-drafts#745 (preview)
• [PR-added] develop timeline for each specification to REC in section 3.6 Timeline, see also Recommendation [wg/das] updated timeline table into text of LS charter-drafts#751
• check items in Scope, which covers existing deliverable well (might be put into todo for next rechartering during one last? - should be resolved during charter development discussion although [wg/das] Device and Sensors WG 2023 Rechartering #429 (comment) and w3c/charter-drafts@46eb504)
• [PR-added] rewording around geolocation sensor [wg/das] Remove Geolocation Sensor deliverable charter-drafts#731 (preview)
• [PR-added] Update WG custom text and quoted insertion from testing policy document in [section 4. Success Criteria](https://w3c.github.io/charter-drafts/2026/das-wg-charter.html#success-criteria, which seems to be covered by standard text in template [wg/das] removing three paragraphs from success criteria charter-drafts#762
• [PR-added] Use dated patent policy link in section 9. Patent policy? [wg/das] updated coordinations (added WICG to coordination, dated PP link) charter-drafts#746 (preview)
• Update (and finalize) the charter History table

just one question, will we need to list WICG in 5.1 W3C Groups of section 5. Coordination, since we explicitly mention them in section 3.4 adding new recommendation-track deliverable as place of incubation?

• [PR-added] add WICG in section 5.1 [wg/das] updated coordinations (added WICG to coordination, dated PP link) charter-drafts#746 (preview)

(note: edits adding PRs once opened, adding [PR-added] label at front and its gh-PR link at last with preview)

[reillyeon]

Looks good.

I think it's good to list the WICG in the Coordination section.

[tidoust]

@himorin, discussed in the Strategy team today. Please initiate charter refinement as chartering facilitator.

[plehegar]

We looked again at the question of whether this working group should continue despite the interoperability challenges and decided to the affirmative for the following reasons.

Going through the charter assessment criteria):

1. Does the charter align with the W3C mission and/or principles (and in particular W3C Statements)?

Yes. While we face open issues from security and privacy perspectives, we believe the work is aligned with the mission and principles.

2. Does the charter align with established web architecture?

Yes.

3. Is there sufficient support for the charter?

Yes, 11 organizations are currently participating in the Working Group.

4. Is there significant consensus for the charter? One example of lack of consensus is when there are two competing charters and the community has not yet converged.

There has been dissent in the past: W3C Council Report on the Formal Objection Against Vibration API Obsoletion (Round 2), 2022 Devices and Sensors Council. In all cases, the Council decided to continue the work.

5. Are there clear signals within the W3C community that the W3C Membership will participate in the work, or that organizations will join to do the work?

11 organizations are currently participating in the Working Group.

We note that most deliverables are currently implemented in a single browser codebase (Chromium project). While it demonstrates implementation experience, interoperability would benefit from additional independent implementations. However, the Chromium project is used by various Web user agents nowadays and new browser projects may become interested in implementing the deliverables in the upcoming years as well. We think the Web would benefit from having this work going through wide review requirements at W3C.

6. Does the Staff have adequate resources for the group in light of current W3C priorities?

Yes.

[anssiko]

@himorin, please integrate whatwg/serial#218 (comment) as a new deliverable.

[plehegar]

Charter refinement

[himorin]

[x] check list of deliverable with current WG working items

We need to move Vibration API specification as under development at CRS.

[anssiko]

One more thing to add to the checklist:

• Add the Web Serial API as a new deliverable.

This allows us to solicit feedback from the entire Advisory Committee on this topic through the well-known AC review mechanism.

See whatwg/serial#218 for further insights.