►
From YouTube: Home automation with Mozilla WebThings - Gergana Young
Description
It's bed time, you change into your pyjamas, turn off the lights and climb into your warm bed. As you are about to fall asleep, you get a message from your neighbour, your garage door is open.
This happens to us all the time. So we come up with solutions like home automation. We spend tons of money on smart hubs and devices that collect data about us. We install apps on our phones without questioning whether this information is stored securely.
What if I told you, there was another way? Mozilla WebThings is a platform for connecting, monitoring and controlling devices over the internet. It is an open source implementation of emerging Web of Things standards at the W3C. The WebThings Gateway is there so that you can see everything in your smart home just by visiting a website. Using the WebThings Framework we can create our own custom components to connect to the Gateway and automate all of the things!
Join me in this talk, where I will show you how easy, secure and affordable it can be to get your house online!
This talk was recorded at the Jozi.JS meetup group on 19 September 2019.
https://www.meetup.com/Jozi-JS/events/263939320/
Disclaimer: The opinions in this talk are those of the individual and do not necessarily represent those of this channel, the meetup group, or its sponsors.
A
Hi
everyone
so
home
automation,
we've
tried
some
home
automation
at
home.
Okay,
a
couple
people
all
right
cool.
So
today,
I'm
going
to
tell
you
all
about
my
home
automation
experiences,
but
first
before
I
get
there.
Let
me
introduce
myself,
so
my
name
is
Gary
Ghana,
but
I
usually
go
by
Jerry,
because
that's
a
little
bit
easier
to
pronounce
and
that's
my
website
over
there
and
my
Twitter
handle
at
the
bottom.
A
But
if
you
wanna
take
a
look
and
I
will
care
at
BBD
in
the
research
and
development
team
and
a
lot
of
people
ask
me
what
we
do
in
the
research
and
development
team
and
the
plain
boring
answer.
Is
we
do
a
bit
of
research?
Obviously
we
facilitate
the
training
of
the
BVD,
the
developers
and
the
rest
of
the
staff,
and
we
also
do
some
specialized
consulting,
but
that's
kind
of
the
boring
answer.
We
also
do
a
lot
of
fun
stuff.
A
We
do
things
like
both
meme
generators,
flight
drawings
with
bananas
and
my
personal
favorite
program,
astromech
droids.
This
is
pretty
much
how
I
started
up.
I
got
one
of
these
little
robots
about
four
years
ago,
so
and
I
got
bored
of
the
app
that
it
came
with
so
I
started
hacking
it
with
JavaScript
and
I,
did
a
bunch
of
talks
on
that
and
that
quickly
became
known
as
that
Star
Wars
robot
grow,
but
after
that
I've
also
hacked
and
a
bunch
of
other
droids
and
electronics,
and
things
like
that.
A
Right
so
I
carried
on
hacking,
things
and
robots
and
all
kinds
of
stuff,
with
mostly
with
JavaScript,
but
one
day
my
husband
asked
me
what
about
me.
So
I
had
done
all
of
this
stuff.
I
had
hacked
so
many
things,
I've
even
written
tutorials,
on
how
you
can
do
home
automation
at
home,
but
none
of
it
was
for
me
even
those
things.
Those
famous
wine
button
that
some
of
you
may
have
heard
of
is
not
actually
a
noose.
It
just
sits
in
a
cupboard.
A
It's
not
even
plugged
in
so
I
decided.
It
was
time
to
do
some
of
our
own
stuff
and
I
decided
I
would
start
with
our
garage
doors.
Now
our
garage
doors
are
a
little
bit
weird.
It
may
be
me,
but
sometimes
when
you
push
the
one
button
the
wrong
door
opens,
and
so
our
motors
are
just
messed
up.
Maybe
I
just
pushed
the
wrong
button.
A
I,
don't
know,
but
a
lot
of
the
time
our
garage
door
stay
open
in
the
middle
of
the
night,
and
we
have
this
really
friendly
neighbor
who
likes
to
tell
people
on
a
whatsapp
group
when
they
gouge
doors
open,
because
it
happens
to
all
the
rest
of
our
neighbors
as
well,
and
we
laugh
about
it
all.
The
time
like
me
and
my
husband
love
about
it
all
the
time.
A
But
it's
it's
actually
kind
of
nice
of
him
to
do
that,
because
you
want
to
close
your
garage
door,
except
when
you're
in
bed
in
your
pajamas
and
you're
warm
and
it's
winter,
and
you
don't
want
to
go
downstairs
outside
to
close
your
garage
door.
So
that's
why
I
decided
to
start
with
the
garage
doors
and
to
do
that
I
decided
to
use
Mozilla
web
things
Mozilla
web
things
is
an
open-source
implementation
of
the
wave
of
things
now
before
we
can
get
to
more
about
Mozilla
web
things.
A
A
It
really
is
it's
the
idea
of
connecting
absolutely
everything
from
people
to
buildings
to
cause
everything
from
a
smart
computer
to
a
bottle
to
a
smart
network
so
that
they
can
communicate
and
share
data
with
each
other,
and
this
is
a
great
idea.
It
seems
like
a
good
thing
to
do
and
if
we
think
about
the
computing
power
we
have
available
to
us,
it
should
be
possible.
But
why
haven't
we
achieved
it?
Yet
we
have
so
many
smart
things,
but
not
everything
is
smart.
Why?
A
Well,
because
we
have
a
number
of
problems
with
the
Internet
of
Things.
The
first
one
is
fragmentation.
If
we
think
about
one
single
sensor
that
census
data
is
not
useful
to
us,
we
need
to
combine
a
whole
range
of
different
sensors
into
one
device
and
make
that
device
smart.
That
means
that
we
need
to
understand
how
all
of
those
sensors
work,
how
could
to
connect
them
together
and
how
to
make
them
work.
You
need
to
understand
different
technologies
to
get
that
working.
Then
we
have
protocols.
A
Anyone
who
has
ever
done
anything
to
do
with
IOT
has
heard
of
the
MQTT
protocol
right,
but
that's
not
the
only
protocol
out
there.
That
is
the
most
popular
one
used
for
IOT,
but
we
also
have
AMQP,
which
is
used
by
Windows
IOT
devices.
Now
I
know
you
what
you're,
probably
thinking?
Does
anyone
really
use
Windows
IOT?
Yes,
they
do.
A
Okay,
then
we
have
weave,
which
is
used
by
Android
things
and
Linux
devices,
and
we
have
homekit,
which
is
used
by
iOS
devices
now
in
order
to
be
able
to
connect
to
all
of
these
different
things-
and
these
are
just
the
popular
ones,
there's
actually
hundreds
of
protocols
in
order
to
be
able
to
connect
all
of
them.
We
need
to
understand
how
these
protocols
work
and
we
need
to
understand
how
to
program
for
these
protocols.
A
Next,
we
have
connection
methods,
we
have
Wi-Fi
Bluetooth
NFC.
All
of
these
different
wireless
connection,
methods
that
we
can
use.
We
can't
just
support
one
of
them
in
order
for
everything
to
be
smart
and
everything
to
be
connected
every
physical
device.
We
need
to
be
able
to
support
all
of
the
different
connection
methods,
which
means
again,
we
need
to
be
able
to
understand
all
of
the
different
connection
methods
and
how
they
work,
and
if
anyone
has
ever
looked
into
how
bluetooth
works.
A
You
know
that
it's
not
easy
understanding
these
connection
methods
and,
lastly,
security,
a
friend
of
mine
and
I,
were
talking
a
little
while
ago,
and
he
said
to
me:
do
you
know
what
the
s
in
IOT
stands
for?
I
said?
No,
there's
no
AC
in
IOT.
What
are
you
talking
about?
He
said.
Yes,
there
is
no
security
in
IOT.
A
This
is
not
a
joke,
I
promise.
You
can
go
to
that
URL,
it's
not
a
joke.
It
actually
happened
last
year,
so
hackers
managed
to
hack
into
the
thermostat
of
the
fish
tank
sitting
in
the
lobby
of
a
casino
and
extract
data
of
all
of
the
high-rollers
in
that
casino
back
out
through
the
thermostat
into
their
database.
A
I'm,
not
joking
I'm,
not
joking.
It's
an
unnamed
casino.
They
obviously
don't
want
a
release
who
who
did
it?
But
security
is
hard
in
general,
often
for
us
as
programmers
Security's
an
afterthought,
but
in
IOT
we're
in
uncharted
waters.
We
don't
actually
know
how
to
do
security
for
IOT.
We
haven't
figured
it
out,
yet
it's
too
new.
A
So
all
of
these
things,
the
promise
of
IOT,
is
actually
amazing.
It
sounds
really
cool,
it
sounds
so
futuristic,
but
if
we
don't
overcome
all
of
these
problems,
there's
no
way
we're
actually
going
to
achieve
it.
This
is
where
the
wave
of
things
comes
in,
so
the
web
of
Things
is
a
w3c
standard
and
it
concentrates
on
the
fact
that
a
lot
of
these
things
have
already
been
solved
on
the
web.
A
If
we
think
about
our
years
of
experience
on
the
web
and
all
of
the
protocols
and
standards
we've
developed,
we
want
to
apply
those
in
the
same
way
to
IOT.
Let's
take
HTTP,
for
example.
Http
is
a
universal
way
of
transferring
information
between
different
machines
and
it's
been
around
for
a
long
time.
It
works
that's
exactly
what
the
wave
of
things
is,
but
for
physical
devices,
it's
a
way
of
connecting
absolutely
everything
in
the
physical
world
to
the
world
wide
web.
Even
the
security
problems
on
the
web
have
been
solved.
A
I
know
not
a
lot
of
people
actually
implement
security
in
their
web
applications
and
therefore
cause
a
lot
of
vulnerabilities,
but
we
know
how
to
do
it,
which
is
the
important
part,
the
formal
definition
of
the
web
of
things.
The
wave
of
things
is
a
refinement
of
the
Internet
of
Things
by
integrating
smart
things
not
only
into
the
Internet
but
into
the
web
architecture.
A
So,
in
order
to
get
a
bit
more
of
an
understanding
of
what
the
web
of
Things
is,
we
need
to
talk
about
its
architecture
and
this
architecture
was
designed
in
such
a
way
so
that
we
can
organize
all
of
the
protocols
and
standards
of
the
web
that
and
we
can
connect
them
to
actual
physical
devices.
It's
a
layered
architecture
and
it
has
four
layers.
The
first
layer
is
the
access
layer.
A
That
way,
our
data
is
available
in
JSON
format
and
it's
easily
readable
by
the
web,
but
now
you're
thinking
garage
doors,
I,
don't
want
to
query
an
API
every
single
time.
I
want
to
know
whether
my
garage
door
is
open
or
closed.
I
want
to
know
real-time
right
now.
Well,
we
use
another
web
protocol.
Websockets
notifies
us
all
the
time,
with
our
doors
open
or
closed.
A
Now
that
we
have
our
data
what's
next
well,
we
need
to
find
and
understand
the
devices
and
the
services
they
provide
for
that.
We
use
web
semantic
standards
to
describe
the
web
things
again.
We
use
JSON
to
describe
what
the
thing
looks
like
what
services
it
provides
and
I'll
show
you
that
a
little
bit
later,
how
it
actually
looks
in
the
JSON,
but
that
would
make
it
searchable
in
search
engines
as
well
as
easy
to
create
user
interfaces
for
layer
3
is
about
sharing.
A
Iot
will
only
be
a
real
success
if
all
of
the
devices
are
able
to
share
data
in
for
information
security,
this
layer
is
responsible
for
exactly
that,
defining
how
this
can
be
done
efficiently
and
safely.
For
example,
we
have
TLS
to
encrypt
our
data.
We
know
how
to
use
TLS,
we
can
encrypt
the
data
of
our
devices
so
that
it's
transferred
securely
between
the
web
and
the
device.
A
A
As
we
said
earlier,
Mozilla
web
things
is
an
open-source
implementation
of
the
web
of
things.
Mozilla
is
big
on
the
standards
of
the
w3c.
They
won't
implement
everything
that
gets
standardized
all
right
in
inside
their
browsers
inside
anything,
and
it
comes
with
two
things:
a
gateway
and
a
framework.
A
The
framework
is
a
collection
of
reusable
software
components,
so
you
can
build
your
own
web
things,
so
you
can
take
any
device
and
code
for
it
to
make
it
a
web
thing
available
on
the
web
by
URL.
It
will
be
then
become
discoverable
by
the
web.
Things
gateway,
or
it
will
also
be
discoverable
by
any
client.
That's
configured
to
look
for
things
on
the
web.
A
Now,
at
this
point
in
time,
I've
been
talking
a
lot
about
web
and
I.
Keep
mentioning
the
word
web
a
lot,
but
I
would
like
to
point
out
that
this
does
not
actually
need
a
working
internet
connection
to
work.
It
can
just
work
on
a
LAN,
so
it
uses
mdns
to
discover
the
devices
that
are
connected
to
the
same
network
and
make
them
available
on
the
gateway
which
is
pretty
cool
because
I
haven't
had
internet
for
the
last
two
weeks
and
I've
been
playing
with
the
stuff
anyway.
A
The
web
things
provides
libraries
web
things,
framework
provides
libraries
in
a
number
of
different
languages,
depending
on
your
devices.
You
can
code
them
in
no
js',
Python,
Java,
rust
or
Drina,
whatever
device
you
have
and
the
nice
thing
about
it
being
all
open
source
is
that
you
can
also
create
your
own
third-party
libraries.
So
there's
a
bunch
of
third-party
libraries
that
exist
as
well,
such
as
c-sharp
library
and
a
few
other
languages
as
well.
Depending
on
what
language
you
prefer,
you
can
use
that.
A
Then
we
have
the
web,
things
gateway.
The
web
things
gateway
is
just
a
web
app
and
it's
there
so
that
you
can
directly
monitor
and
control
your
smart
home
over
the
web
without
having
any
sort
of
middleman
without
needing
Google
home
or
an
Alexa
or
home.
What's
the
Apple,
one
called
I
forgot
that
one.
A
It
comes
with
a
bunch
of
things.
Firstly,
a
user
interface
to
control
your
devices
and
monitor
them
a
rules
engine
so
that
you
can
automate
the
interactions
between
all
of
your
different
devices
and
also
a
whole
bunch
of
add-ons.
So
you
can
connect
it
to
existing
devices.
So
one
of
the
add-ons
that
I'm
planning
on
using
is
the
chromecast
add-on,
so
it
can
cost
directly
to
your
chromecast,
with
the
web
of
things
get
away
again,
it's
open
source.
A
So
if
you
can't
find
the
add-on
for
the
device
that
you
want
to
use,
then
you
can
make
your
own
add-on
and
submit
a
pull
request
now.
The
way
you
get
the
web
things
gateway
installed
is
you
can
use
it
either
just
download
the
repo
from
github
and
just
run
npm
install
and
pete
npm
start
and
you
have
it
running.
That's
how
I
have
it
running
at
home.
We
have
an
old
media
center
computer
and
it
just
sits
there
running
the
gateway
for
for
us.
Now
you
don't.
A
If
you
don't
have
that
option,
you
can
also
get
the
Raspberry
Pi
district
and
flash
it
directly
onto
an
SD
card,
put
it
into
a
Raspberry
Pi,
and
that
will
run
it
for
you.
The
web
thinks
gateway
is
also
a
PWA.
I
haven't
tested
this
feature,
but
it
does
mean
that
you
can
install
it
on
your
phone
is
an
app,
so
it
might
provide
some
cool
offline
capabilities
as
well.
A
It's
a
cool
option
so
for
my
demo,
I
was
going
to
set
up
this
really
cool
thing
where
I
was
going
to
set
up
the
cameras
at
home
so
that
they
will
look
at
the
garage
doors
and
I
was
going
to
open
the
garage
doors
and
from
here
at
home.
But
then
we
didn't
have
internet
for
two
weeks
and
we
got
internet
yesterday,
however,
I
wasn't
gonna
risk
the
internet
dying
again
today,
because
I
didn't
trust
it
very
much.
A
So
I
decided
that
I
should
bring
all
of
my
things
here,
and
we
can
pretend
that
they're
opening
and
closing
garage
doors.
Okay.
So
this
is
what
all
of
this
stuff
here
is.
We
have
a
reed
switch,
which
is
how
much
your
garage
door
sensors
work.
You
can
come
check
it
out
afterwards
and
a
magnet
to
close
and
open
the
reed
switch.
A
A
Have
a
look:
this
is
just
the
repo
exactly
as
downloaded
from
github.
I
have
run
npm
install
already,
because
I
don't
want
to
such
a
downloading
the
entire
internet.
While
you
wait
for
me
so
I'm
just
going
to
run
NPM
start
well.
That
starts
up
I
want
to
show
you
something
else.
This
here
is
the
URL
of
the
led.
It's
not
loading
right
now,
so
I'm
going
to
stop
that,
and
you
can
see
the
JSON
format
it
provides.
The
name
of
my
LE,
my
LED
device
over
here
is
called
warning
light.
A
It's
an
on/off
switch
because
I
want
to
be
able
to
turn
the
LED
on
and
off,
and
it's
also
a
light
and
all
of
its
properties
can
be
found
at
this
URL.
All
of
its
events
can
be
found
at
this
URL,
and
the
alternate
here
is
the
WebSocket
URL,
which
is
pretty
cool
now
the
first
time
you
start
up
the
web
things
Gateway.
A
Yeah
yeah
it
does
it
generates,
and
it
sends
you
it
sends
you,
the
information
to
confirm
your
email
and
everything.
So
mine
is
created
already
I
just
want
to
make
sure
it
all
started
up
correctly.
So
and
it's
just
whatever
name.
You
choose
dot,
Mozilla,
IOT
dog
and
that's
accessible
from
anywhere,
and
this
is
what
the
Gateway
looks
like
you
can
see.
We
don't
have
any
devices
as
yet
so
I'm
going
to
click
the
plus
button
and
hope
that
this
all
works.
A
A
A
Okay,
see
this
here
opened
new
things
socket
there
we
go.
It
found
all
three
of
them
all
right
cool,
so
you
can
see
we
have
and
one
of
the
cool
things
here
that
that
I
wanted
to
point
out
and
why
I
needed
to
find
all
three
of
them
is
so
the
the
relay
and
the
door,
even
though
they
attach
to
the
same
actual
device.
They
come
up
as
two
different
senses,
because
that's
how
you
you
can
set
it
up
as
two
different
devices.
A
So
that's
pretty
cool
and
the
door
you
can
set
as
a
door
sensor.
Save
that
the
warning
light
we
can
save
that
and
the
relay.
We
can
save
that
all
right,
so
that's
gonna
refresh
there.
So
you
can
see
our
door
is
currently
closed.
If
I
move
the
magnet
away,
our
door
is
open
if
I
put
the
magnet
back
on
door
closes
and
if
I
push
the
on/off
button.
A
A
A
Oh
and
wait
wait,
wait!
There's
one
more
thing:
I
had
to
show
you
sorry,
there's
a
really
cool
thing
where
you
can
upload
a
picture
of
the
flow
plan
of
your
house
and
put
all
of
your
devices
on
in
the
different
parts
of
your
house,
so
you
can
see
exactly
where
they
are
in
the
house
and
then
the
add-ons
are
over
here.
A
You
can
see
you
can
add
on
a
bunch
of
stuff
a
bunch
of
different
things,
there's
a
whole
lot
of
different
ones.
You
can
you
can
find
in
here
it's
really
cool
and
really
easy
to
set
up
and
I
think
it
only
doesn't
work.
When
you
make
your
own
web
things
devices,
it
works
a
bit
more
reliably
if
you're,
using
ones
that
have
been
created
by
other
people,
because
because
of
my
C
code,
mainly
alrighty
cool.
A
So
this
is
where
I've
started
only
have
garage
doors
for
now
I'm
planning
on
automating,
more
things
in
the
house,
so
keep
an
eye
out
on
my
Twitter.
If
you're
interested
to
see
more-
and
the
last
thing
I
wanted
to
talk
about,
is
the
w3c
standards
with
standards
like
this
being
taken
seriously
on
the
web,
that
whole
idea
of
the
IOT
of
connecting
absolutely
everything
to
networks
is
becoming
a
possible
thing,
we're
soon
going
to
have
the
IOT
that
we
deserve.
Thank
you.