Power-up getStats for Client Monitoring
WebRTC’s peer connection includes a getStats method that provides a variety of low-level statistics. Basic apps don’t really need to worry about these stats but many more advanced WebRTC apps use getStats for passive monitoring and even to make active changes.
Extracting meaning from the getStats data is not all that straightforward. Luckily return author Balázs Kreith has a solution for that. Balázs is the lead developer of the open-source WebRTC monitoring project, ObserveRTC. Within that project, the client-monitor-js repo has become its most popular. client-monitor-js aggregates getStats data into a more useful form, directly inside your JavaScript client.
In this post, Balázs shares some of his learnings building this tool. After some intro and background to the WebRTC Statistics API, he provides useful insights with code for using getStats data for common WebRTC issues – network congestion, CPU overuse, stuck tracks, and frozen video. Check it out below!
This blog post explores how to effectively use WebRTC stats to identify, detect, and expose common issues such as video freezes, and network congestion. We will look at the getStats API and show where additional aggregation is needed for in-depth analysis. As a reference, I will use the client-monitor-js from the ObserveRTC project, an open-source tool that helps to collect and use WebRTC-related stats in your web-client code.
