I think quite the opposite 
Having a dedicated IP-to-something gateway/bridge (e.g. via REST for HUE) for each technology I’m trying to integrate feels as a work-around for not being able talking directly the protocol via dedicated binding.
The native integration in openHAB is usually better IMHO.
Personally, I tried to get rid of my zoo of bridges/gateways.
openHAB has bindings for all my technologies used here and is the gateway to them.
I have openHAB … being sheltered in
the basement in a perfect Faraday case :-D.
Yes. Same here.
All the other helping writers here already pointed out the common solutions. No need for me to re-iterate…
EDIT: I opted for the ser2net+socat approach too:
Just one final hint:
Think of a second or a third or a forth … technology you like to hook up in the future. Would’nt it be good to have a single gateway supporting all of them instead of having a growing zoo of bridges behind the curtain?
That’s how I did it currently with Zigbee, ZWave, RFXCom and Bluetooth/BlueGiga. I like it…