Can HTML5 communicate with peripherals like scanners and credit card readers?

Question

My company writes software that installs on client machines to perform point-of-sale transactions. The software interfaces with a variety of external peripherals (receipt p

Answer 1

Just for the record, a method that works well in 2016 (since chrome 26), but is to be withdrawn over the next 2 years is to deploy your html5 as a chrome app and use chrome.usb (or chrome.serial or chrome.bluetooth).

I am currently using chrome.usb and planning to migrate to a web app using WebUSB API (see Supersharp's answer), which I hope will be adopted by the time Google discontinue chrome apps