Mozilla's Connected Devices Innovation Process: Four Projects Move Forward
I really wonder what should be the difference between those Link and Smart Home projects and something like OpenHAB, besides that is newly started by Mozilla. I think the current adaption of DIY or build-something-through existing frameworks shows that most people don&#x27;t really care about such solutions, they want something that works out of the box - even if all parts come from a single manufacturer.<p>From an engineering perspective implementing lots of proprietary protocols in a single gateway device is lots of work and will never work 100% fine. Most people that worked on such solutions will confirm you that, and I can also do that (in a somewhat different domain). You can sink lots of money is these projects, and they still might not work for some customers at all - just like universal remotes - only more complex.<p>One way forward could be pushing the creation of devices (gateways, sensors, actors) that are based solely on standardized and accessible protocols. I&#x27;m not the biggest fan of CoAP (because I think it&#x27;s hardly possible to implement it correctly), but I would still prefer this to reimplementing Z-Wave or Hue protocols. HTTP&#x2F;2 could also be a good fit. But even if you have at least the protocol layer standardized, there possibilities for API design are endless. Standardizing IoT APIs throughout the whole stack in a backwards compatible fashion could really be something worthwhile, but the effort will be big, and it&#x27;s questionable if other parties are actually interested in standardization.<p>And just a side node: I don&#x27;t think Rust is the best choice for building a prototype for a mostly event based system. EventLoop semantics are hard to implement because of ownership&#x2F;borrowing issues, the necessary dependencies (websocket libraries, etc.) are all in their in infancy, and it might also not be something that allows to move as much forward in speed as you want for a prototype (where you as a tradeoff can live with lower performance). Yes -  I&#x27;m sure the Rust commmunity will disagree with me on the last point ;)