To some degree both Apple and Google seem to be pushing towards that. In iOS 10 your phone/tablet talks directly to home devices, and if you have an Apple TV it

To some degree both Apple and Google seem to be pushing towards that. In iOS 10 your phone/tablet talks directly to home devices, and if you have an Apple TV it allows secure tunneling (e.g., talking to your devices via the always-on Apple TV). Ditto Google is working on similar things, though the precise plans are a bit more uncertain. An "actual" home server in the form of a computer in a closet is IMO incredibly unlikely. Piggy-backing this functionality into an existing always-on device seems much more likely for mass adoption. The big issue is that IoT manufacturers will be fighting this tooth and nail. Nobody wants to be a commodity IoT manufacturer, and so all of them will try to push their own (shitty) cloud platforms as value-adds and avoid commoditization. Similar to how Android OEMs keep crufting up a perfectly fine OS in a futile bid to prevent commoditization. It won't work, but they will try.