Disclosure: I worked at Mozilla with the core WebThings dev team and still collaborate with devs on this project. I don't do devel on the gateway, but I create "web things" (IoT devices) that connect to it.
I use the gateway to manage my smart home and I love it. Love the privacy. Love the rules. Love the add-ons.
Going forward, I'd like to see companies adopt it yes, but my main focus will be pushing the gateway and framework to be used for STEM education around IoT. I currently work with the https://MicroBlocks.fun team, an awesome FOSS STEM edu tool for programming microcontrollers. I drove a Mozilla Open Source Software (MOSS) support grant to fund the core MicroBlocks devs to build a "web thing" library, when at Mozilla. The combo of the two projects is awesome imho.
If you can't buy an IoT device to suit your needs, you can easily build one. :)
Excellent summary. The "oh wow this feels different" aspect of MicroBlocks comes after you try it. It makes programming microcontrollers as interactive and hands-on as building electrical circuits from discrete components. Your changes are immediate. And the live data graphing from sensors feels like a graphic voltmeter or oscilloscope. For physical computing it's simply the best learning tool I've ever encountered (note I'm an EE major, not CS). All those "real" programming languages now fall short in my view. I'm hooked.
https://iot.mozilla.org -- can easily install the WebThings Gateway on a Raspberry Pi, or in a Docker container, or CLI install to a Linux box. It runs locally in your home. No cloud account, no cloud data center dependency, command and control accessible from the web UI served up by the home gateway. Local voice commands are possible too. My "home smart home" stays in my home. :)
The Turris OS that runs on Omnia is a customized OpenWrt build that lets a user plug a USB memory stick (with the Mozilla WebThings Gateway image, and only that image on it) into the Omnia, hold down the reset button until the 4th front panel LED lights, let go, and wait until it installs and the "WebThings Gateway XXYY" SSID appears. Then connect to it and proceed with the setup process. Suggest other hardware to potentially support on Mozilla's Discourse "iot" channel. Or the mozilla-iot/gateway repo on github.
It is indeed. Mozilla's WebThings Gateway does everything locally, by default. You and your home are the center of its universe. The add-on system not only enables lots of smart home device interop, but also lets you bring in other web content from the Internet that you might want to tie into your smart home. I pull from USGS for earthquakes >5.0 and within 400km of my lat/lon. I also use my lat/lon for time/date rules, local tide charts, and local weather. A rule tells my (always on mute) Google Home speaker to announce "An earthquake >5.0..." when such an event comes in. I also love the (local) voice add-on. It uses Snips wakeword and speech-to-text and a customized-by-Mozilla intent parser and interface to the web thing API so that when you create a new thing or change a name, the local language model is updated immediately. Works on RPi3 very well. No Internet required. The Snips part of the install is currently a hack though, and broke in 0.9. If you installed using 0.7 or 0.8 it will still work. But otherwise you'll have to wait for the 0.9 installer fix.
For tech people, this is easy to use. Still some UX/UI updates needed for mainstream consumer readiness. Remaining big problem is that smart home devices don't tell you whether or not they are web of things ready (direct or via an addon). Need to check the wiki or ask online.
Mozilla hosts an https tunnel for subdomains that match YOUR-subdomain.mozilla-iot.org where users choose a unique subdomain and a cert for it is auto-installed (using LetsEncrypt) onto the RPi or Turris Omnia during first time setup. In the future once the WebThings Gateway has control over edge firewall rules, then the tunnel can go away in favor of a "hole" for 443 or a port forward rule for https access directly to the gw. Privacy risks are far reduced if we all run our own local smart home gateway in our homes.
I use the gateway to manage my smart home and I love it. Love the privacy. Love the rules. Love the add-ons.
Going forward, I'd like to see companies adopt it yes, but my main focus will be pushing the gateway and framework to be used for STEM education around IoT. I currently work with the https://MicroBlocks.fun team, an awesome FOSS STEM edu tool for programming microcontrollers. I drove a Mozilla Open Source Software (MOSS) support grant to fund the core MicroBlocks devs to build a "web thing" library, when at Mozilla. The combo of the two projects is awesome imho.
If you can't buy an IoT device to suit your needs, you can easily build one. :)
A talk I gave in Sept shows a "walk around the house" demo at about 13:00min. It gives you a small taste of what you can do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a0gXt8m9Yw