tomashubelbauer / webrtc-airdrop

AirDrop based WebRTC signaling channel

Webrtc AirDrop

I have an idea for using AirDrop as a signaling channel for WebRTC data channel. I will prototype it for Firefox on macOS and Safari on iOS peers, but it should work across any two browsers on iOS/macOS that support URL sharing over AirDrop.

Flow

• The user opens https://tomashubelbauer.github.io/webrtc-airdrop
• The page generates offer SDP and sets it as JSON to the URL
• The user shares the URL via AirDrop
• The browser at the peer side opens the page
• The page generates answer SDP and sets it as JSON to the URL
• The user shares the URL back via AirDrop
• The browser at the original peer side opens the page (in a new tab)
• The new tab page relays the answer data to the origin tab (service worker)
• The original tab page finalizes the connection
• The new tab page closes itself
• The data channel opens

Notes

The URL JSON payload is Base64 encoded, because Firefox fails to load the Share menu providers if the URL is not encoded this way.