The launch of the new version of the platform for IoT devices WebThingsGateway 1.0.
Being is a significant version, as it underscores the separation of Mozilla in an independent project, managed and developed by the community. The launch is primarily aimed at migrating users from Mozilla-linked infrastructure to their own services.
And is that Due to cost optimization, Mozilla stopped funding development and sent the WebThings project afloat, providing the opportunity to use its infrastructure to host remote access, run cloud services, and deliver updates only through December 31, 2020.
WebThings Gateway 1.0 will be distributed through Mozilla servers, but all additional updates will be changed to your own capacity and to the new subdomain webthings.io.
As a reminder, the marco WebThings consists of WebThings Gateway and the WebThings framework library.
The project code is written in JavaScript using the Node.js server platform and is distributed under the MPL 2.0 license. Building on OpenWrt, a ready-to-use distribution kit with integrated support for WebThings Gateway is being developed, providing a unified interface for setting up a smart home and wireless access point.
WebThings Gateway is a universal layer to organize access to various categories of consumers and IoT devices, hiding the peculiarities of each platform and not requiring the use of specific applications from each manufacturer. To interact with the gateway with IoT platforms, you can use the ZigBee and ZWave protocols, WiFi or direct connection via GPIO.
In addition to allowing migration, the version of WebThings Gateway 1.0 also includes the following changes.
Main new features of WebThings Gateway 1.0
In this new version that is around the independence of Mozilla, it is highlighted that Mozilla branding cleaned up: directory name changed profiles from ~ / .mozilla-iot to ~ / .webthings, environment variable MOZIOT_HOME has been renamed to WEBTHINGS_HOME, mozilla-iot-gateway, services have been renamed to webthings-gateway, among others .
Also, we can find that added support for a new branch of the Node.js 14 platform. The gateway plugin library for Node.js has been rewritten in TypeScript.
Support for humidity sensors was implemented, atmospheric pressure, air quality and smoke content, as well as a property to take into account current energy consumption.
An update delivery channel has been added to the configuration, providing access to preview versions.
In addition to MPEG-DASH and HLS, support was added for the M-JPEG video encoding format.
Of the other changes that stand out:
- Added support for the Podman Toolkit in the Docker image.
- Added support for plugin search.
- Added translation for the Ukrainian language.
- Removed built-in mDNS server, instead of external implementations (Avahi or Bonjour) should be used.
- The Raspbian version includes SPI support.
How to get WebThings Gateway?
For those who are interested in WebThings Gateway, they can get it very easily. They just need to download the firmware provided to the SD card of your Raspberry Pi.
To save the image you can use Etcher, which is a multiplatform tool.
Likewise, it will be in charge of finding the existing IoT devices which will give you the option of being able to configure the parameters for external access and to be able to add the most popular devices to the screen.
After installing the update from WebThings Gateway 1.0, Users will be prompted to register at webthings.io and migrate to the new infrastructure.
After migration, automatic delivery of updates and remote access will still work, but the subdomain name for the entry point will change from * .mozilla-iot.org to * .webthings.io, and the updates will be downloaded via the host api.webthings.io.
If the migration is canceled, the local installation will continue to work as before, but without being tied to cloud services and without automatic delivery of updates.