Web of Things API
Owning home automation via HTTP
Presented by:
Christian Paul is a web developer with a strong interest in decentralized, self-hosted services. He is of the opinion, that a standardized file format or network protocol holds more value than any individual application. Over the years he taught himself how to use a variety of open source tools for software development, knowledge and file sharing, as well as chatbots and machine learning. More recently the Web of Things has caught his eye, which led to a collection of smart home devices being locally controlled by a Raspberry Pi and self-written HTTP web services to power automation.
The Web of Things API is a protocol based on HTTP for connecting devices to the web. New connected devices from hundreds of vendors usually come with a requirement of using their cloud services. Mozilla and the W3C are working on an easy, decentralized standard to give those devices an address on the web and provide interoperability. The “things” can be controlled from a single controller or a self-hosted hub. When we decide to adopt smart devices for home automation, data ownership and security are important. Using the Web of Things you are able to ditch the tracking cloud services of certain vendors. Using HTTP makes sense for most devices as it has tons of implementations. One can gradually upgrade to HTTPS for encryption and HTTP2 or Websockets for better performance.
In my presentation, I will
- give an introduction to the Web of Things API,
- show some protocol snippets for developers,
- highlight what Mozilla has done as part of their Project Things,
- and invite people to play with the Mozilla Things Gateway / API.
- Date:
- Duration:
- 45 min
- Conference:
- LinuxFest Northwest 2019
- Language:
- Track:
- Internet of Things
- Difficulty:
- Easy