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In other words: It's dead. And to be clear, IMO that is absolutely fair. At this stage WebThings seemed more like a conceptual thought, rather than actual mar

In other words: It's dead. And to be clear, IMO that is absolutely fair. At this stage WebThings seemed more like a conceptual thought, rather than actual marketable products, protocols or even code. If Mozilla need to cut for real, they should definitely get rid of stuff like this which lacked a complete and convincing story.

dahfizz 6y ago
I strongly disagree. They have a W3C spec for the WebThings API[1]. Not a protocol as such but its a big step in the right direction. And the existing product is great. I have been using it for months to control my TV, stereo, lights, etc with no issue. I have even added custom adapters for my own little projects. It's a great product to work with and use. I agree that this project was unlikely to make Mozilla any money, but this is much more than a "conceptual thought". [1]https://iot.mozilla.org/wot/ https://iot.mozilla.org/wot/
- dominicl 6y ago
  Indeed they did do quite something in standardization of thing controls for which it so sad to see it going unmaintained. On the tunnel side though which they are also shutting down there are plenty alternatives e.g.[1] [1] https://diode.io/download/ https://diode.io/download/
benfrancis 6y ago
I'm pleased to report that WebThings isn't dead, it is alive and kicking with a new commercial sponsor. The Thing Description specification at the core of WebThings is now a W3C Recommendation (https://www.w3.org/TR/wot-thing-description/ https://www.w3.org/TR/wot-thing-description/) and there is a new W3C Web Thing Protocol community group working on standardising the concrete HTTP & WebSockets based protocol WebThings uses to monitor and control devices. The WebThings platform includes over a hundred GitHub repositories worth of code (https://github.com/WebThingsIO/ https://github.com/WebThingsIO/) but I'm sorry to hear you feel it lacks a convincing story. That's something I hope to improve in WebThings' new life beyond Mozilla's R&D department.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- tssva 6y ago
  I know this may be painful to hear since the new commercial sponsor is you but having an early stage startup which is entering the fairly crowded digital signage space be the commercial sponsor is not something which is going to raise anyone's confidence level that WebThings has a long term future.
- dolmen 6y ago
  What interested me in WebThings was: * independance of any device vendor * independance of operating system vendor * independance of cloud vendor (local data) * true openess that would allow some hope of device vendors contributing integrations As a former developer of a proprietary home gateway who has studied and implemented many home automation protocols I know too much the mess of the home automation ecosystem. Just walled gardens. And gateway APIs are one way to lock-in users and software developers. I wonder if that "new commercial sponsor" will not change the balance of independancy.

dahfizz 6y ago

I strongly disagree. They have a W3C spec for the WebThings API[1]. Not a protocol as such but its a big step in the right direction. And the existing product is great. I have been using it for months to control my TV, stereo, lights, etc with no issue. I have even added custom adapters for my own little projects. It's a great product to work with and use. I agree that this project was unlikely to make Mozilla any money, but this is much more than a "conceptual thought". [1]https://iot.mozilla.org/wot/ https://iot.mozilla.org/wot/

dominicl 6y ago
Indeed they did do quite something in standardization of thing controls for which it so sad to see it going unmaintained. On the tunnel side though which they are also shutting down there are plenty alternatives e.g.[1] [1] https://diode.io/download/ https://diode.io/download/

benfrancis 6y ago

I'm pleased to report that WebThings isn't dead, it is alive and kicking with a new commercial sponsor. The Thing Description specification at the core of WebThings is now a W3C Recommendation (https://www.w3.org/TR/wot-thing-description/ https://www.w3.org/TR/wot-thing-description/) and there is a new W3C Web Thing Protocol community group working on standardising the concrete HTTP & WebSockets based protocol WebThings uses to monitor and control devices. The WebThings platform includes over a hundred GitHub repositories worth of code (https://github.com/WebThingsIO/ https://github.com/WebThingsIO/) but I'm sorry to hear you feel it lacks a convincing story. That's something I hope to improve in WebThings' new life beyond Mozilla's R&D department.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
tssva 6y ago
I know this may be painful to hear since the new commercial sponsor is you but having an early stage startup which is entering the fairly crowded digital signage space be the commercial sponsor is not something which is going to raise anyone's confidence level that WebThings has a long term future.
dolmen 6y ago
What interested me in WebThings was: * independance of any device vendor * independance of operating system vendor * independance of cloud vendor (local data) * true openess that would allow some hope of device vendors contributing integrations As a former developer of a proprietary home gateway who has studied and implemented many home automation protocols I know too much the mess of the home automation ecosystem. Just walled gardens. And gateway APIs are one way to lock-in users and software developers. I wonder if that "new commercial sponsor" will not change the balance of independancy.