1. A computerized gateway device, comprising: a central processing unit (CPU); a power source; a digital memory coupled to the CPU; one or both of physical communication ports and circuitry providing a wireless communication interface receiving data in a variety of heterogeneous communication protocols from a plurality of data-gathering devices communicating in differing ones of the heterogeneous communication protocols; an output interface to a wide-area network; a plurality of dedicated hardware pipelines managing the data received from the data-gathering devices through execution of firmware in the hardware of the pipelines; and coded instructions executing on the CPU from a non-transitory medium; wherein the CPU, executing portions of the coded instructions, connects physically or wirelessly to one of the data-gathering devices, obtains protocol characterization information for the heterogeneous communication protocol generic to the data-gathering device, selects a protocol application profile stored in the digital memory according to the protocol characterization information, identifies and removes pieces of code in the protocol application profile that is not compatible with the information and inserts pieces of correct code, thereby creating and storing a new protocol application profile and programs the firmware in a dedicated pipeline to receive data from the data-gathering device in the new protocol application profile, and communicates that data to the wide area network at the output interface in a generalized protocol compatible with upstream processing nodes.