What is the way of calling my device from iOS Safari and Chrome on Android?

Question

Goal

Ability to call my device at a press of a button from a website using a default browser on mobile:

• Safari on iOS
• Google Chrome on Android

Requirements

• The user has limited technical ability.
• The user may not have admin rights, cannot install new apps
• The device does not have a monthly plan (no credit, no calling allowance)
• Device is connected to WiFi and can access internet

Note: I'm not saying "calling my phone" - that is "nice to have".

Calling my device is sufficient (think push notification and opening an app).

I think that permission to access the microphone (transmitting voice) and permission to access the camera (transmitting video) are neither or, if you can do one surely you can do two.

• Can use Twilio
• Can use animated GIFs: https://github.com/videlalvaro/gifsockets
• Can us morse code over smoke signals
• Preference towards stable, reliable, standardized implementation.

Background to this question:

• I remember this: https://dev.opera.com/blog/web-page-camera-access/
• And this: https://stackoverflow.com/a/10428084/775359
• At first Opera development build, then Chrome Canary with flags enabled, then landing by default in mainstream Chrome

Now we have August 2019, the web has moved forward and I'm seeking the simplest, recommended way of calling my device from a webpage.

Answer 1

Twilio developer evangelist here.

You are certainly right that the web has moved on since those early experiments in Opera (I remember downloading the special camera build that had the first implementation of navigator.getUserMedia and being very excited).

With both Chrome on Android and Safari on iOS you can now make real time, peer to peer video and audio calls in the browser over WebRTC. To make that easier, Twilio has a Video API and SDK that makes the signalling, connections and overall experience much nicer.

Your issue, however, comes in the notifications. You can now make push notifications happen on the web and this will work in Google Chrome. However, Apple have been reluctant to add that to Safari iOS (you can do it on the desktop, however it's not the standard). So this makes a dent in your requirements.

You do, however, say that "calling my phone" - is "nice to have".

This is something that you can make happen with the Twilio voice API and doesn't require anything special on the device that is receiving the call (as long as an incoming phone call is what would work for you). In order to create and connect that call from the push of a button in a web application, you could use the Twilio Voice Client JavaScript SDK. This SDK makes calls from browsers over WebRTC.

On the other hand, you say that the device doesn't have any calling credit, so I don't know if receiving an incoming call would work for you.

These are my ideas and suggestions. Let me know if any of this helps at all.