W3C - Web of Things Working Group

First Public Working Draft: Web of Things (WoT) Thing Description 2.0

Tue, 04 Nov 2025 06:28:00 +0000

The Web of Things Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of the Web of Things (WoT) Thing Description 2.0. This document describes a formal information model and a common representation for a Web of Things (WoT) Thing Description (TD), Version 2.0. A Thing Description describes the metadata and interfaces of Things, where a Thing is an abstraction of a physical or virtual entity that provides interactions to and participates in the Web of Things. Thing Descriptions provide a set of interactions based on a small vocabulary that makes it possible both to integrate diverse devices and to allow diverse applications to interoperate. Thing Descriptions, by default, are encoded in a JSON format that also allows JSON-LD processing. The latter provides a powerful foundation to represent knowledge about Things in a machine-understandable way. A Thing Description instance can be hosted by the Thing itself or hosted externally when a Thing has resource restrictions (e.g., limited memory space) or when a Web of Things-compatible legacy device is retrofitted with a Thing Description. Furthermore, this document introduces the Thing Model, which allows authors to describe only the model or class of an Internet of Things (IoT) entity. Thing Models can be seen as a template for Thing Description instances, but with reduced constraints such as no or few requirements for specific communication metadata.

This specification continues the work of WoT Thing Description 1.1 with no guarantees on backwards compatibility. In case of no backwards compatibility, there will be concrete guidelines for implementers to migrate to the new version.

In other updates, the Working Group has retired the Group Note for the WoT Binding Templates and replaced it with the WoT Binding Registry. Additionally, the Working Group has published an updated Working Draft for the WoT Profiles.

AIOTI Workshop on Semantic Interoperability for Digital Twins at ERCIM

Dave Raggett — Thu, 14 Nov 2024 08:00:00 +0000

the workshop will discuss Semantic interoperability - key to open ecosystems on the Web

Enhanced Web of Things connects diverse IoT ecosystems

Tue, 05 Dec 2023 13:21:00 +0000

Read testimonials from W3C Members and Liaison partners

https://www.w3.org/ – 5 December 2023 – The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) announced today that Web of Things (WoT) Architecture 1.1, Web of Things (WoT) Thing Description 1.1, and Web of Things (WoT) Discovery are now official W3C Recommendations. Without breaking compatibility with the first release in 2020, these new W3C Recommendations improve and expand the scope of the Web of Things and add significant new functionality. In addition, two supporting W3C Notes have been updated, the Web of Things (WoT) Binding Templates and the Web of Things (WoT) Scripting API.

WoT addresses the IoT fragmentation problem

Currently, Internet of Things (IoT) systems suffer from lack of interoperability and fragmentation. Customers want to be able to choose devices from multiple vendors without redesign. The Web of Things (WoT) extends the IoT with web technology to address this issue. In particular, the WoT recommendations provide a format for standardized descriptive information, the WoT Thing Description, to allow easy integration of IoT devices and services. This includes IoT systems that have already been released and use different IoT communication protocols and data standards. In short, the WoT uses web technology to harmonize access to diverse IoT devices and breaks silo walls. This allows WoT applications to be written on top of a single, portable interaction abstraction.

Significant improvements and functionality

These new Recommendations were revised to improve the usability of the previous release and address new use cases. Significant new features were also defined, including Thing Models and Discovery. Thing Models provide a way to describe classes of things, such as sensor devices or product lines from particular vendors, and support modularity by allowing a parameterized model to be built from reusable components.

A Thing Model can be used to generate a Thing Description by providing the appropriate parameters. Discovery provides easy access to Thing Descriptions, while controlling access appropriately to preserve privacy. It does not replace other existing discovery mechanisms but builds upon and applies them to the distribution of Thing Descriptions.

WoT Discovery can be applied both within a local-area network (LAN), and at scale across the entire internet. It can also be used for both self-describing IoT devices and externally described devices. A searchable Thing Description Directory service is defined supporting semantic search.

Widely adopted and supported

Many software packages and open-source projects now support WoT, including tools for Thing Description validation and construction as well as support for Thing runtimes and Thing Description directories supporting discovery.

Market adoption of the Web of Things is gaining momentum, with notable products such as SayWoT! and Desigo CC from Siemens and the Building Communication System from Takenaka. Interesting products from startups are also appearing like MONAS and Agorà from VAIMEE for creating digital twins of cast-resin transformers, and in the agricultural domain for crops and terrains; and Krellian Cloud, which provides real-time data analytics for smart buildings. Additionally, the Web of Things has either been adopted or is under consideration for adoption by several standards organizations, including ECHONET, Conexxus, the OPC Foundation (OPC UA Web-of-Things Connectivity), IPA Digital Architecture Design Center, and Industrial Digital Twin Association (Asset Interfaces Description).

The growing WoT user community is supported by multiple WoT Community Groups, which hold regular meetings to share information on WoT and its applications in both English and Japanese.

About the World Wide Web Consortium

The mission of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is to lead the Web to its full potential by creating technical standards and guidelines to ensure that the Web remains open, accessible, and interoperable for everyone around the globe. W3C well-known standards HTML and CSS are the foundational technologies upon which websites are built. W3C works on ensuring that all foundational Web technologies meet the needs of civil society, in areas such as accessibility, internationalization, security, and privacy. W3C also provides the standards that undergird the infrastructure for modern businesses leveraging the Web, in areas such as entertainment, communications, digital publishing, and financial services. That work is created in the open, provided for free and under the groundbreaking W3C Patent Policy.

W3C's vision for "One Web" brings together thousands of dedicated technologists representing more than 400 Member organizations and dozens of industry sectors. W3C is a public-interest non-profit organization incorporated in the United States of America, led by a Board of Directors and employing a global staff across the globe. For more information see https://www.w3.org/.

End Press Release

Media Contact

Amy van der Hiel, W3C Media Relations Coordinator <w3t-pr@w3.org>
+1.617.453.8943 (US, Eastern Time)

Testimonials

Testimonials from W3C Members

Fujitsu • Hitachi • Intel • Microsoft • Oracle • Siemens • VE3 (formerly "Banksly")

Fujitsu

"We are pleased to endorse the updated Web of Things (WoT) standard. This update has made the specifications more practical and applicable, and we committed to continuing our support. As an integrator, we aim to build out digital transformation (DX) solutions based on the global standards, driven by 5G and IoT technologies. Fujitsu believes that this approach will enable us to seamlessly connect to AI-powered solutions, thereby enhancing our ability to deliver innovative and efficient services to our clients."

Bun Kimura, Head of Strategic Planning Department, Product Planning Div., Mobile System Business Unit, Fujitsu Limited

Hitachi

"To feedback effective solutions from digital twins to real-world systems, it is essential that we are able to quickly find devices in the physical environment and understand their roles and the context of the data which they provide. The updated recommendations to which we contributed in part, include enhanced capabilities such as Thing Discovery that will facilitate this link between the physical and cyberspace. We're enthusiastic that these leaps in cyber-physical systems will stimulate progress across diverse sectors and contribute to the realization of a better society."

Itaru Nishizawa, Vice President and Executive Officer, Chief Technology Officer, Hitachi, Ltd.

Intel

"Intel congratulates the WoT WG for the updated WoT standard. This update solidifies support for the descriptive approach to IoT interoperability. IoT fragmentation remains a major barrier to greater IoT adoption. The WoT standard addresses a key challenge in the integration of IoT devices and services from different IoT ecosystems by providing a common format for describing data and interaction. This descriptive approach strongly differentiates it from other prescriptive approaches to IoT interoperability, and is designed to work with and enhance other standards, not compete with them."

Eric Siow, Director, Web Standards and Ecosystem Strategies, Intel Corporation

Microsoft

"We built a reference implementation that uses the new Web of Things (WoT) release with our Azure OpenAI service to demonstrate how to automatically onboard industrial assets and were pleased with how easy it was to generate WoT Thing Descriptions automatically. In addition, the open-source WoT tools available from the Eclipse Foundation made automatic validation of the generated Thing Description an easy value add."

Erich Barnstedt, Chief Architect Standards, Consortia and Industrial IoT, Azure Edge + Platform Team, Microsoft Corporation

Oracle

"The Web of Things set of specifications, including the updated version 1.1, serves as a unifying framework to address complex IoT use cases requiring interoperability across diverse ecosystems at massive scale. Oracle is pleased with the progression of this set of specifications to the Recommendation status and is proud to have been an active contributor, leader, and co-editor of this effort. We believe that this will benefit customers and users by enabling much-needed interoperability between different vendor solutions for IoT."

Jai Suri, Vice President, IoT and Blockchain Applications Development, Oracle

Siemens

"Addressing today's market challenges, such as energy optimization, requires technologies that facilitate easy heterogeneous system integration and optimization implementation. The Web of Things, which is one of the key technology building blocks, facilitates addressing such challenges by integrating efficient diverse data sources from a variety of device systems. Our in-house solution sayWoT! implements the latest WoT Thing Description 1.1 and is successfully used in various IoT projects by customers. One of the highlights is the usage of sayWoT! in the Wunsiedel Energy Park, Germany, to enable smart control to ensure green hydrogen production."

Thomas Kiessling, Chief Technology Officer at Smart Infrastructure, Siemens AG

VE3 (formerly "Banksly")

"The W3C's enhanced Web of Things (WoT) standards, including WoT Architecture 1.1, WoT Thing Description 1.1, and WoT Discovery, represent a significant leap in addressing the challenges of IoT interoperability and system fragmentation. The harmonization of IoT devices and services brought about by these standards resonates with our pursuit of seamless and integrated digital solutions. We particularly appreciate the advancements in Thing Models and Discovery, which align with our focus on scalable, modular, and privacy-conscious digital infrastructure. Through the implementation of these WoT standards, we envision an accelerated progression in developing intelligent, interconnected systems that are not only efficient but also accessible and secure. This aligns perfectly with our mission at VE3 to drive technological advancements that are both innovative and sustainable."

Manish Garg, Director, VE3

Testimonials from Liaison partners

OPC Foundation • SIFIS-Home Consortium

OPC Foundation

"The OPC Foundation welcomes the new releases of the W3C Web of Things. Current OPC Foundation group activities are working on a solution how WoT Thing Descriptions can be used as a data model mapping service from non-OPC UA asset interfaces to OPC UA systems. This reduces the onboarding effort (e.g. of Modbus-based assets) and enables smooth use of asset data interfaces in the OPC UA address space. We see this as a big win for the manufacturing industry and another important step towards improving the interoperability of heterogeneous asset landscapes."

Stefan Hoppe, President, OPC Foundation

SIFIS-Home Consortium

"The SIFIS-Home consortium is looking forward to the new W3C Web of Things standards. The SIFIS-Home project focused on proving that it is possible to have more awareness on the risks and hazards related to the deployment of connected devices in the Home environment. The Thing Description model proved to be the ideal match to deliver the additional information."

Luca Barbato, SIFIS-Home Consortium Member and Andrea Saracino, SIFIS-Home Project Coordinator

W3C Web of Things 1.1 specifications are W3C Recommendations

Tue, 05 Dec 2023 02:00:00 +0000

The Web of Things Working Group published today three W3C Recommendations and recently updated supporting W3C Notes, thus enhancing with new functionalities the standards that enable interoperability across IoT platforms and application domains:

Web of Things Architecture 1.1 describes the abstract architecture for the W3C Web of Things for multiple application domains;
Web of Things Thing Description 1.1 describes the metadata and interfaces of Things, which are abstractions of physical or virtual entities that interact to and participate in the Web of Things;
Web of Things Discovery supports the distribution of WoT Thing Descriptions in a variety of use cases, including ad-hoc and engineered systems, during development and at runtime, and on local and global networks.

These new W3C Recommendations improve and expand the scope of the Web of Things without breaking compatibility with the first release in 2020, using web technology to harmonize access to diverse IoT devices and breaks silo walls. Please, read more in our Press Release.

Call for Review: WoT Architecture 1.1, Thing Description 1.1 and WoT Discovery are W3C Proposed Recommendations

Tue, 11 Jul 2023 02:00:00 +0000

The Web of Things Working Group has just published three Proposed Recommendations for WoT. The W3C Web of Things (WoT) enables interoperability across IoT platforms and application domains. The goal of the WoT is to preserve and complement existing IoT standards and solutions. The W3C WoT architecture is designed to describe what exists, and only prescribes new mechanisms when necessary.

The three Proposed Recommendations are:

Web of Things (WoT) Architecture 1.1 describes the abstract architecture for the W3C Web of Things based on a set of requirements derived from use cases for multiple application domains. This specification describes a superset of the features defined in the WoT Architecture 1.0 specification.
Web of Things (WoT) Thing Description 1.1 describes the metadata and interfaces of Things, where a Thing is an abstraction of a physical or virtual entity that provides interactions to and participates in the Web of Things. This specification describes a superset of the features defined in the WoT Thing Description 1.0 specification.
Web of Things (WoT) Discovery describes how to discover and obtain the Thing Description of a Thing in a distributed environment for various use cases.

Comments are welcome through 8 August 2023.