
Mozilla WebThings - sohkamyung
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/04/introducing-mozilla-webthings/
======
giancarlostoro
This is the Mozilla I love. I wish they did more projects like this, it's a
shame Firefox OS went away, especially in this world of PWAs.

I do love that this dashboard can even be ran on your router. Also the web UI
looks really clean.

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metildaa
Firefox OS has been rebranded as KaiOS, and its eating marketshare with $5 LTE
bar and flip phones. Said devices are pretty minimally specced with a Qualcomm
205 and 128MB of Ram, but Mozilla did a great job optimizing for low end
devices.

~~~
carmate383
Source for the supposed "eating" of global marketshare? I can't find any
marketshare report that even mentions such an OS.

~~~
panpanna
Aren't Nokia/hmd featurephones all running kaios?

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Dunedan
The only Nokia phone running KaiOS so far is the Nokia 8110 4G
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_8110_4G](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_8110_4G)).

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hathawsh
Whoa, at the end of the article there's an announcement about "WebThings
Gateway for Wireless Routers". Is this the beginning of apps for routers? I've
talked about the idea before:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18887403](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18887403)

I'm excited to hear more.

~~~
paavoova
What exactly differentiates "apps" here from regular programs you can install
on routers? If your router runs a hosted system such as Linux and isn't locked
down (e.g. OpenWRT), you can install/compile for any existing program that
supports the architecture and system. Installing tor as you in linked post is
just "opkg install tor". A lot of packages have webgui frontends, too.

Edit: I've read the article and Mozilla even mentions reskinning/basing off of
OpenWRT. Which only puzzles me even more given you write "the beginning of
apps for routers" as if OpenWRT/pfSense/etc doesn't exist.

~~~
hathawsh
Grandma can't compile and install OpenWRT packages. The idea is to let
developers create apps (server apps) that anyone, especially Grandma, can
install on their router. The experience should be similar to installing apps
on iOS or Android phones.

NAS apps sound interesting, but not what I'm looking for. Router apps have
untapped potential because routers are relatively inexpensive, always on, and
have a real Internet address, unlike the rest of the home/office network.

What kind of apps would developers create? All kinds! Some would succeed and
some would fail, just like phone apps. The point is to unleash developer
creativity. Today, nearly all Internet traffic is routed to Netflix, Google,
Amazon, and Facebook. Over the next few years, consumers will buy millions
upon millions of upgraded routers. I think they would like to buy routers that
do more for them than send all their traffic to a tiny number of huge
companies.

~~~
kgiori
Several good points. Only one aspect made me laugh. Even if I _can_ "opkg
install <pkg_name>" to run the Mozilla WebThings Gateway, I'm lazy. I'd rather
buy a box that maintains my privacy and is updated periodically with security
and feature enhancements. What made me laugh is that I don't fit your
stereotype. I first used ddwrt around 2003 then switched to OpenWrt and
convinced QCA to adopt it as the basis for QSDK when 11ac routers came out.
And if all goes well with my daughter-in-law, I'll become a Grandma in 2-3
weeks. But I am looking forward to easily installing apps, especially those
that respect my privacy. :)

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hathawsh
Congratulations on becoming a grandmother! Sorry I didn't think of a better
example of the kind of user I'm thinking of. "Bob the accountant", mentioned
by someone else, is probably a better example.

I've also run several generations of OpenWRT and I've decided it doesn't make
sense for me to spend time maintaining it. For example, I'm interested in
installing something like Zulip (an open source team chat service) on my
router, but I know from experience that anything special I install in OpenWRT
requires custom configuration and will need regular manual maintenance and
upgrades. It's a big time commitment and I have to be careful with my time.

In a better world, I would tap to install Zulip on my router, automatic
upgrades would be enabled by default, and I would be prompted to also sign up
for a Zulip-oriented encrypted backup subscription service. Having spent only
a minute or two to install Zulip, I would gladly pay for the backup service
since the developers proved that they respect my time. I would no longer feel
the need to sign up for another cloud service. Privacy would win!

~~~
kgiori
Your desire not to have to admininster OpenWrt yourself is legit. I don't
either. The Mozilla WebThings Gateway integration work is being done by
Mozilla so that they can offer the result to OEMs who would sell a product
with it already installed, and the Mozilla team would maintain the sw. So
consumers at any tech skill levels won't have to be sysadmins in order to
achieve the privacy and security protections they deserve.

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askvictor
This looks like a competitor to homeassistant/Hass?

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anyzen
Yes, it looks this way to me too. Interesting that they didn't join forces.

~~~
tornadon
Thanks it took me way too long to figure out “what” this thing was.

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pagutierrezn
I expected to see MQTT as an integral part of the WebThings Gateway but
haven't found it so far

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IshKebab
MQTT is kind of crap so I'm not surprised.

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Uberphallus
What's the problem with MQTT? It's basically the interconnecting standard for
all things IoT. I mix and match IoT devices, and everything is fed into Home
Assistant through MQTT, plus logging to InfluxDB. I'm familiar with the
protocol and haven't found any wart; the biggest problem is how to run it with
redundancy and at a scale.

~~~
musingsole
I cannot stand debugging MQTT devices. From establishing a connection to
sending data, it is consistently difficult to pinpoint where the failure in a
system is occuring.

Contrast this with HTTP and WebSockets that are extremely simplistic to use.
Largely by virtue of bigger communities using them, but so it is.

Where's the benefit of MQTT? The code is just as large and more opaque by
being an uncommon standard (compared to HTTP). Everyone says bandwidth, but
that's hardly a concern often and when it is...I can never seem to find the
numbers of how much data usage MQTT would save for a given application.

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josteink
> We’re also excited to share that we’ve been working on a new OpenWrt-based
> build of WebThings Gateway, aimed at consumer wireless routers.

I’m impressed. Almost sold, even.

All I’m left wondering about is device-support.

How does this compare to (for instance) Home Assistant?

~~~
xiaomai
I've been using Things gateway for probably a year or so now (I'm just using
z-wave devices, but Things supports lots of other types as well). The main
thing I see missing that most home automators will want is support for
locks/garage door openers/etc. The interior stuff like
lights/alarms/plugs/sensors/etc. is all great.

A lot of emphasis is on their Web of Things protocol that looks really cool
and would be fun to play around with if you wanted to add your own home-made
device (or hopefully more vendors will be adopting that protocol soon).

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canada_dry
Took a quick breeze though the intro and maybe missed it...

Where's the love for IoT DIY/tinkerer gadgets though? i.e. Arduino, Beagle
bone, ESP8266/32?

~~~
mintplant
Check the "Arduino" tabs on the WebThings Framework homepage [0]. See also the
Supported Hardware list [1], which includes ESP8266, ESP32, and Raspberry Pi
(among many others).

[0] [https://iot.mozilla.org/framework/](https://iot.mozilla.org/framework/)

[1] [https://github.com/mozilla-iot/wiki/wiki/Supported-
Hardware](https://github.com/mozilla-iot/wiki/wiki/Supported-Hardware)

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VectorLock
What products support WebThings right now?

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kbumsik
Here is the maintained list of supported hardware:

[https://github.com/mozilla-iot/wiki/wiki/Supported-
Hardware](https://github.com/mozilla-iot/wiki/wiki/Supported-Hardware)

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hutzlibu
Ok, so if I would like to have a motion sensor (and maybe a camera) attached
to a server on a rasperry pi which sends alerts to my smartphone ... how much
work and tinkering can I expect at the current state, if I am very good in
javascript, node and linux, but not at "low level" things?

~~~
kgiori
Try either the e-mail sender add-on or the twilio add-on, then create rules
that notify you via one of those methods. Camera integration is tricky, mostly
due to the lack of standards around data streams and extra sensors/actuators,
dealt with in different ways by different vendors. Other binary sensors or
variable sensors can be triggered easily with rules to notify you of things
you care about.

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white-moss
A competitor, Samsung SmartThings has sandboxed-app system. It enables users
to operate IoT machines with groovy based programming language.

Things Gateway also can control IoT machines, but its simple rule-based
system. It is currently losing point and improvable feature.

I'm very excited with Things Gateway philosophy, so I can't wait for its next
evolving.

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robotron
Are there docs for setting this up on a pi without flashing it? I want to run
this alongside a few other things on my pi.

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lousken
Would this be compatible with Turris Omnia?

~~~
kgiori
That's one of the targets for OpenWrt support, yes.

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detaro
Any particularly good tutorials exploring it? How well does it integrate with
existing tech, both closed and open? (E.g. in open-source Home Automation,
MQTT seems to be the glue of choice)

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revskill
Everytime i see a Mozilla product announcement, i feel hope.

The hope for a better Internet.

It's opposite feeling with Google.

~~~
zachguo
Google has done a fairly amount of work to help the world wide web survive
while more and more gated mobile platforms are created, because their revenue
still depends on it.

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arthurcolle
Sorry for the aside but what CMS does Mozilla use for these publications? Just
out of curiosity

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Khalos
Looking at the source, it looks like they're just using WordPress.

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the8472
Does it use multicast discovery?

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rzr
yes mDNS

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carmate383
C'mon Mozilla, please. Less projects that will end up like Firefox OS, more
work on _Firefox_.

~~~
danso
Seriously? IoT is a quickly growing, potentially massive and ubiquitous field.
Given the shit state of security and technical implementation of its initial
era, in very glad that a well-resourced non-profit is helping to create an
open standard.

~~~
carmate383
And six years ago, mobile was a quick-growing massive and ubiquitous field.
How did that pan out for Mozilla? A failed operating system and the beginning
of a huge decline in both marketshare and performance for Firefox.

~~~
danso
Last I checked, Mozilla was still a functioning, funded company pushing out
regular updates to Firefox, among other projects. Mobile still is a massive
and ubiquitous field, and Firefox Mobile is one of Mozilla's ongoing projects.
You believe that a failed project means a company should stop innovating and
entering emerging fields?

~~~
kkarakk
maybe if they'd actually ENTER it'd matter. partner up with a chinese
manufacturer and make mozilla branded IoT stuff. providing a platform without
associating a manufacturer is doomed to failure imo. Especially in the
saturated hyper competitive markets mozilla chooses to enter.

~~~
Vinnl
I do expect them to be attempting to partner, so hopefully we'll see some
announcements in the future.

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ousta
it seems to be mostly for domotics right? what about IOT for other things like
medical devices for instance that would be a good area to open source

~~~
kgiori
the W3C Web of Things framework is agnostic to use cases and devices.
Mozilla's WebThings framework can work in medical, industrial, etc. It's just
that Mozilla's focus is to put people first. (Plus it's easiest to invite
makers and community dev when contributors can use it themselves at home). All
the code is open source -- I've already seen some industrial companies pick it
up and customize for their needs.

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yallegoheadz
this thread further illustrates the dumpster fire of self importance that is
HN

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wayneftw
Are there any Mozilla projects that have any sort of market share and make
money or are they mostly just living off that sweet Google cash for their ~10%
Firefox market share?

Any chance Google stops funding them soon?

(Wow, a question was asked. Better censor it Mozillans!)

~~~
robotron
You also asked a question with a lot of editorializing in it. I wouldn't call
downvotes censorship.

~~~
wayneftw
Exactly what part of it was editorialized?

Is getting $500 million dollars a year from Google not a sweet deal?

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dccoolgai
My first reaction is "wtf? What about WebBluetooth?" That is an open standard
that supports tinkering, integrates with Permissions api, etc. And it's been
withering on the vine with no help from Moz... this looks like a poor
alternative, tbh, unless I'm missing something.

~~~
kevingadd
What does Web Bluetooth have to do with IoT? Bluetooth is a short range, low-
bandwidth protocol for 1:1 pairing of devices, isn't it?

That aside, Google's approach to introducing experimental APIs like Web Audio,
Web USB, Web Bluetooth etc has been... less than ideal. Having been involved
in it, I don't think it's surprising that other vendors are not interested in
helping.

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coupdejarnac
I'm making an IoT device that connects through web bt. Web bt allows us to
circumvent having to publish mobile apps, at least for Android and desktop
OSes.

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kevingadd
Sounds like a cool use case, it just sounds nothing like what WebThings does.

~~~
coupdejarnac
It pretty much covers the same use case, except my device doesn't use wifi
directly to access the interwebs.

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aphextron
My first thought seeing this headline: Let me guess, another move from Mozilla
to start gathering more personal data. I wish they’d proven me wrong.

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igetspam
Have you played with it at all? Mozilla isn't acting as a data broker, they're
providing software and a framework. The world of iot doesn't have that many
great offerings for private systems. Mozilla is taking their years of software
experience and building something decent. I'm glad to see this hasn't been
shuttered yet. I've been wanting to move more of my home automation away from
cloud based services and this has a lot of potential. (The current best
offering I know of is hass)

~~~
metildaa
Even things Mozilla did pull support from and attempt to shutter, like
Thunderbird and Firefox OS (now KaiOS) had vibrant communities that stepped up
and kept these projects alive.

Mozilla does know how to build a community around the projects they work on.

