An edge gateway is a gateway with enough compute to do more than translate. It speaks the protocols of local equipment, such as Modbus on a factory floor or Zigbee in a building, normalizes the data, runs filtering or machine learning locally, and uplinks results over Ethernet, Wi-Fi or cellular. Industrial models add rugged enclosures, wide temperature ranges and multiple serial ports.
Because it sits between two networks, the gateway is both a convenience and a security chokepoint. It can enforce network segmentation and act as the single point that holds cloud credentials, but it also becomes a high-value target and a single point of failure. Edge computing explained discusses where it fits.
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