Web/API/InputDeviceCapabilities API

This is an experimental technologyCheck the Browser compatibility table carefully before using this in production.

The InputDeviceCapabilities API provides details about the underlying sources of input events. The API attempts to describe how the device behaves rather than what it is. For example, the first version of the API indicates whether a device fires touch events rather than whether it is a touch screen.

Input device capabilities concepts and usage

Because DOM events abstract device input, they provide no way to learn what device or type of device fired an event. This can lead to instances where the same action triggers multiple event handlers.  To deal with this, developers make assumptions and use heuristics to normalize behavior on web pages. 

The InputDeviceCapabilities API addresses this problem by abstracting the capabilities of input devices. For example, let's say we have a web page that implements both a touchstart and a mousedown event. We can assume that if the touchstart event is triggered that the user's device has a touch interface.  What about when the mousedown event is triggered? It would be useful to know if a touchstart event were also triggered so that we don't take the same action twice. We can do this by checking the sourceCapabilities property of the UIEvent.

myButton.addEventListener('mousedown', function(e) {
  // Touch event case handled above, don't change the style again on tap.
  if (!e.sourceCapabilities.firesTouchEvents)
    myButton.classList.add("pressed");
});

Interfaces

InputDeviceCapabilities

Provides logical information about an input device.

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
InputDeviceCapabilities	Draft	Initial definition.

Browser compatibility

The compatibility table on this page is generated from structured data. If you'd like to contribute to the data, please check out https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data and send us a pull request.

Update compatibility data on GitHub

	Desktop						Mobile
	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari	Android webview	Chrome for Android	Firefox for Android	Opera for Android	Safari on iOS	Samsung Internet
InputDeviceCapabilities Non-standard'	Chrome Full support 47	Edge Full support ≤79	Firefox ?	IE No support No	Opera Full support Yes	Safari ?	WebView Android Full support 47	Chrome Android Full support 47	Firefox Android ?	Opera Android Full support Yes	Safari iOS ?	Samsung Internet Android Full support 5.0
InputDeviceCapabilities() constructor Non-standard'	Chrome Full support 47	Edge Full support ≤79	Firefox ?	IE No support No	Opera ?	Safari ?	WebView Android Full support 47	Chrome Android Full support 47	Firefox Android ?	Opera Android ?	Safari iOS ?	Samsung Internet Android Full support 5.0
firesTouchEvents Non-standard'	Chrome Full support 47	Edge Full support ≤79	Firefox ?	IE No support No	Opera Full support Yes	Safari ?	WebView Android Full support 47	Chrome Android Full support 47	Firefox Android ?	Opera Android Full support Yes	Safari iOS ?	Samsung Internet Android Full support 5.0

Legend

Full support  

Full support

No support  

No support

Compatibility unknown  

Compatibility unknown

Non-standard. Expect poor cross-browser support.'

Non-standard. Expect poor cross-browser support.

InputDeviceCapabilities API by Mozilla Contributors is licensed under CC-BY-SA 2.5.