Improving user interactions with constrained devices in the web of things

As the Internet of Things continues to grow rapidly in the coming years, the number of devices with limited resources will continue to grow as well. These so-called constrained devices typically implement specialized protocols and data formats for increased efficiency. While this reduces the load on constrained devices, it also limits the usability of such devices for their users. This paper presents a HTTP-CoAP proxy for improving the usability of constrained devices that implement embedded web services. This is accomplished by rendering user interfaces and solving naming and routing issues. As a result, the user experience of highly-optimized embedded web services is similar to that of conventional web services. By means of small-scale experimentation, the presented approach is evaluated functionally and the usability is evaluated in terms of user interface responsiveness.