title: State of Web Serial API In 2020
body: <p>With the release of Chrome 77 the Web Serial API became available with the use of an experimental flag. This is particularly useful for desktop applications running in NW.js or Electron, where NodeJS has previously (and still does to a large degree) provided a bridge between web and native. </p>
  
  <p>I find myself very much wanting to abandon the use of NPM packages like serialport, which extend both NW.js and Electron to provide serial port access. </p>
  
  <p>While Electron 8.0.1 does make available <code>navigator.serial</code>, it's not exactly clear how much of the API is actually implemented. To further complicate things, there is no good documentation for the API (at least in my search) besides <a href="https://wicg.github.io/serial/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://wicg.github.io/serial/</a> and <a href="https://github.com/WICG/serial/blob/gh-pages/EXPLAINER.md" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://github.com/WICG/serial/blob/gh-pages/EXPLAINER.md</a>. I've tried tinkering with it on my own, but it's not clear whether I'm using it incorrectly, or whether parts simply aren't implemented. </p>
  
  <p>So what is the status of this API? Which parts are reliably implemented (in Chromium), and is there any indication of when this will be ready for prime time? I think a lot of people are wondering this as it opens quite a few doors for interaction with the user's PC. </p>