Understanding MQTT: How Smart Home Devices Communicate

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[@skepsmart2667]

I'm very much a n00b to IoT and all of this - for about a year now. I've seen tons of videos and I just stumbled onto yours channel accidentally today somehow - no idea how it took a year, but I want to thank you! The level of detail, but simplicity in how you explain things is excellent! Super easy to understand and follow! Keep it up and thank you!

[@shanesams6283]

You can definitely tell that you're a teacher by the way your set your videos up and talk. Its awesome

[@JeffreyHammerCam]

YES! More videos like this one, I like the complete explanation of some of these features, I didn't understand the QoS until you spelled it out! I've been looking for MQTT for dummies so I could get my knowledge up to par, thanks again!!

[@palblinker]

As a newish parent. I'm so happy you used cleaning up your room as an example.

[@patrickniemeyer5795]

Great video - I can't believe it's taken me this long to find this one. Support this guy's patreon.

[@seshukumar7662]

you have nice and simple way of explaining things! Thank you.

[@ariwijaya538]

Awesome video. Nice explanation and i finally begin to understand how to use the MQTT Thank you very much!!!

[@ardentdfender4116]

I work as a Field Process & Automations Control Engineer for a OEM in the industrial Industry. While IT people deal with the company corporate network systems, we deal in OT in the Operations Systems in the industrial & manufacturing space. And only recently I started getting into learning about OPC and MQTT Protocols. As this relate not to just IoT but IIoT for the entire Industrial sector and getting raw data from the PLC and Automation Control Systems and Networks from the device into the cloud so that information can be stored to later apply Analytics, Metrics and all kind of spreadsheet analysis. That’s a massive amount of data locked in the PLC and being compiled ever single sec 24/7 all year long and when system is in operation. So figuring out how to get that all that data involving a protocol like MQTT that is very lightweight is now coming into play with what I’m doing in industrial Automations and industry 4.0 initiatives. It’s damn exciting times.

[@adifoto6362]

Thanks for a good video. Keep them coming.

[@VAKUL-DC]

Awesome tutorials...now retain and qos makes sense..been thinking of looking it up...thanks to you know i know

[@CozySleepingCouch]

The video I have been waiting for...👍👍👍 Cant wait to see it, thanks a lot for making it 😎

[@andrewbeasley]

For a noob just starting MQTT this was great - thank you for making this vid.

[@DethpickleDave]

Great series. Keep it up!

[@andrewloughran5812]

Love your videos. Keep it up!

[@hubertmargreiter3508]

These clips are extremely helpful. Thank you for making the effort to allow people who are interested in this matter to participate at and benefit from your work. I wish you had written your spoken sentences (like you did in your clip about understanding input-/output-/analogue-/digital pins, ESP8266 compared with ESP32) which would allow reading about this - in my eyes - rather complex matter. Or can you refer to one of your clips in which you explain step by step how to set up MQTT with Node Red? Or do you have another helpful idea how a beginner can learn to understand this matter. The best teacher is always a simple example, and you are an excellent teacher!! Thanks for reading and please continue uploading clips.

[@Tony455HO]

Great video man. Subbed. Cheers!

[@bgable7707]

Nice, very conscience and thorough

[@omarcruz6326]

Great Content, Thanks for the good job.

[@ViciousXUSMC]

Good video, the part that is most unknown to me is what you started to get into at the end. The MQTT naming and subscription/status. I would like if you had gone into more detail on the possible wildcards, use cases, etc. Perhaps a different video just expanding on that little bit further?

[@squalazzo]

best explanation found, so far... i knew most of this stuff, but you made it easy for everyone to understand :) about tasmota, you can choose between 3 different MQTT libraries (the prebuilt binary firmwares use the 1st one, with smaller memory footprint)... i had issues with a remote mqtt broker unaccessible if i had no internet at home... my sonoffs started going crazy... then someone pointed me at this, look at my next comment (anti-youtube link protection)...

[@squalazzo]

github.com/arendst/Sonoff-Tasmota/issues/3010

[@TheHookUp]

I saw this on the reddit thread. Sounds awesome. I need to update my tasmota sonoffs and find out of there is a console command to switch mqtt libraries.

[@squalazzo]

The Hook Up unfortunately not... As you see there, they suggested me to recompile by myself... They just use the one which most of us use, and with less memory requirements...

[@waynewill5273]

great channel, what do you think of the Cayenne app for home automation & security sensors?

[@hillmakeitbetter]

Great stuff, I appreciate your work. This subject can get deep very quick. I installed a Shelly 2.5 and just got Hass.io running on a Pi. I also just added Mosquitto broker to HA. I'm not sure what to do next. Do you have a video that explains next steps to get the Shelly connected to HA? Step by Step? I'm new to this. TIA

[@gerardschepers3744]

Great video. It taught me more about QoS and Retain. But my suggestion for another video would be what I can best use. E.g. all systems balance on the triangle fast, quality and price. For a MQTT setup that translates to something like response-time, reliability, bandwidth usage. (the latter may look like a no-brainer, but what if a device needs to connect to a LORA network) . I would be interested in a video explaining when using high/low QoS, the retain flag, LWT versus having a low bandwidth, or a low reliable network. Also I understand the concept of a LWT but have never seen an implementation using it. E.g. my sonoffs nicely publish a "tele/sonoff01/LWT Online" but what should happen when I brutally kill the sonoff by pulling the plug. Thank you - Fritz

[@HiWiFiDrones]

Amazing video! Thanks teacher!

[@xbmcnut]

Great video. Didn't know about the shortcomings in pubsub.

[@AsurDJ]

So I have some questions about HA and MQTT, im new to both. I just recently set up the HA Add-on "MQTT Server & Web client" and am fairly confident I set everything up correctly. My question is when I got to the Open Web UI and log in im not really sure where to go from there or if I don't even need to be doing that. Also if i leave the web UI and come back I have to log back in completely. Great tutorials and I hope to use a couple of them once I get some better understanding of everything!

[@jetlaggedchef6806]

Fantastic explanation!!

[@viniciusnoyoutube]

Excellent!

[@troubleinechopark]

can you please update the mqtt information for home assistant. They have made some changes that i dont understand

[@msmadaram]

have you ever work on android broker such as moquette or something like that ?

[@shahram.y]

Wow. Excellent!

[@OthmanAlikhan]

Thanks for the video =)

[@MrHbpatel]

👌 very good explanation

[@scienceoftheuniverse9155]

Does a local nodered subscribe to topic on the cloud broker? Provided that the local nodered is connected to the router

[@Trains-With-Shane]

That LWT function is pretty cool. We use that in telecom as well sometimes. They call it a "dying gasp" it's a little more direct than letting a server discover that a device is missing like the LWT does. It actually notices that device lost power and with what is left in the capacitors sends an alert to the management system. It's quicker, but if for some reason that message doesn't get sent the system will still notice the device hasn't checked in and sends a message similar to LWT. Something to the effect of "device went missing" or some such. Anyways not relevant to the topic I just thought LWT was worthy.

[@taranagnew436]

i signed up for Hass.io but i can't get to the screen in 0:27

[@BaconRanch]

I just watched another youtubers video - "set up home assistant with mosquitto " and man is it bad. 20 min video took me 3 hours to get through, the guy mis types, ddoes commands that he doesn't bother telling about, has added some notes for his errors, long story short, he screwed me and my time. I deleted and uninstalled the files and mosquitto, yet wouldn't you know it, the icon shows up in services. I did chek the directories and the new files were gone but now I am really at a loss. It seems to be working, I published something fromthe help page, but I have no idea if it works or how to use it. Any tips??

[@mohanachuthvarma6478]

excellent

[@zianian]

I love these videos. And now I need help. I have a bunch of x10 devices they all work good in hassio. But if I use my PC with EventGhost or actual physical remote control the x10 lights/switches do not change state on/off in the HA ui. It's a bummer. I use mochad and a few red nodes to get the x10 commands out to mqtt on HA Pi4 but I have no clue how to connect those mqtt messages to the x10 entities. It's driving me nuts. For days. lol Arrg can anybody point me in the right direction? Thanks all. And Thanks a bunch for all these videos Mister Hook Up.

[@jihadhamwi]

brilliant

[@LeocadioGarza]

Great timing, I am having the issue that you talk about. I am trying to use a sonoff 4ch pro to trigger a relay for a garbage door setup. It works great in the inching settings but when power or network reboots the relays trigger using tasmota. Not a good thing when your security system flips out in the middle of the night. It works great with no triggering when using the itead software. I have tried using console to change the mqtt settings and nothing works. I tried changing the topic and retain flag in hass. I noticed using the console that when it turns on network reboots it gets a mqtt message and it triggers. How can I do what you showed can it be setup in the home assistant config files?

[@TheHookUp]

The sonoff triggers when the network reboots? Do you have an MQTT client that you could use to connect to the sonoff command topic and see if there is anything in there that pops up on reconnect?

[@JohnVanderbeck]

Can an MQTT client device subscribe to multiple topics? Seems this could be useful but your Node RED node properties imply this isn't possible?

[@georgewashington421]

Great video, keep publishing more. 2 Questions: 1-Am I correct in assuming that; the only reason to install MQTT on Home Assistant is the poor reliability of Sonoff devices? 2-Once the Mosquitto is active, does it automatically take over from Home Assistant to control the devices? Thanks

[@TheHookUp]

MQTT increases reliability and decreases reliance on cloud services. You must set up your devices to use MQTT, it isn't automatic.

[@vladmirputin7139]

It would be great if my tasmota devices actually supported qos:1 or qos:2

[@vwsurfer8809]

I think my brain is about to blow up!

[@weizhishi3270]

Thanks, I want know how to protect Mqtt traffic on the internet

[@RadioPolytechnique]

Use https encryption on all your internet traffic, configure your firewalls properly, ensure proper user access restrictions on your server, etc.

[@RookieRay]

But how make rgb on

[@JohnWeland]

So NodeRed is not a broker, so I'll need a broker and NodeRed

[@basharblue]

Can you please do a video about connecting your existing solar system to home system to get all the readings to HA. and what would be the best route/way to do it.

[@TheHookUp]

I unfortunately don't have a solar system. I would for sure do that video if I did.

[@basharblue]

The Hook Up you should definitely look into solar , like you can get a 10KW system for under 15k and I will help you install it.

[@easwaran83]

How do i know what are all the list of topics available for MQTT say sonoff basic

[@TheHookUp]

You mean a sonoff basic with tasmota? A sonoff basic doesn't have MQTT from the factory. Tasmota's commands and topics are here: github.com/arendst/Sonoff-Tasmota/wiki/Commands

[@easwaran83]

@@TheHookUp My question was how do i know what are all the list of MQTT topic available/That can be used of Ex Sonoff basics tasmotized how can i see the list of MQTT topic. Is there a console command to know that list?

[@MrHollow]

And i still don't understand the point of MQTT... In what cases would i want to use it? Since home assistant does everything in want with zigbee, zwave and all other integrations. Why do I want MQTT ?

[@TheHookUp]

MQTT is for WiFi devices, if you are happy with zigbee and zwave you can stick with that.

[@NA12495]

I want to get into MQTT, but can't find the answer to my question (googling/youtube). If I have a client that is reading temperature to turn on a fan, does it have to send temp to the broker, and then the broker send a message to the client to turn on the fan? Or can I program that in the client, and the client tells the broker, hey the temp is X and the fan is now on? I want to make sure the clients can still do their task even if they lost connectivity to the broker.

[@TheHookUp]

The broker handles everything, clients can not directly communicate. Think of the broker less like a relay and more like a big billboard that devices can write on and watch. Your temp sensor would be posting info onto the billboard and other devices would be watching that spot for change.

[@NA12495]

@@TheHookUp I understand that part, but what if the temature sensor and fan relay are on the same Esp 32?

[@Pegasosreborn]

is it possible to let alexa respond to the status of the doorswitch? throught IFTTT or something like that?? question by noob... :)

[@TheHookUp]

Not easily, no. It can be done with Home Assistant by configuring your echo devices as "media players", and then creating automations to play sound files, but it's definitely not a beginner project.

[@Pegasosreborn]

thnx for taking the time to answer! will browse your channel. keep up the good work! thnx.

[@default_youtube_profile]

I used rabbitmq (amqp) for software project that publishes messages cross site, this is the first time I am hearing about MQTT sounds like you were mostly talking pub/sub rather than just MQTT. Correct me if I am wrong!

[@TheHookUp]

Correct, they are applicable to many pub/sub based protocols.

[@pjbear1813]

Hi another great video. I am using a Pi with AB Electronics LOPi boards to give me 82 inputs which I use to read all my light switches and volt free sensors. I have a simple python code running which loops looking for when the input changes state and then fires off an mqtt message to mosquitto all working well using Paho. But I want to use authentication to log onto the broker. I know it can be done but can not find how it can be set up in python. Do you or anybody else here know a link to show me how to do it. I am only just learning python so all help welcomed

[@TheHookUp]

Authentication should be required by the broker, you just need to set up a username/pw in mosquitto. Or are you talking about using TLS/SSL?

[@pjbear1813]

The Hook Up I am referring to just user and password ok to set it up in mosquitto but it’s Paho I am struggling with.

[@michaeldominguez239]

3:25 This is the first time he blinks this video....

[@crimsyhs]

I am unsure what to do with this information, but I don't like it

[@_O0.0O_]

Is there a The Hookup website where these video scripts are posted so I can keep coming back for reference? If not: Hi, future me! QoS level explanation starts at 3:34

[@chrisw1462]

Also a noob, but I believe your setup isn't as inconsistent as you think. I agree that a full-compass "Main" schema should be top down. But top-down means different things for different.. topics? A Room is definitely the parent of it's Door(s). The Roomba is also parent of it's Commands, so there's no real mismatch there. But there would seem to be good reasons for parallel schema to be grouped differently (I assume parallels are possible, from what I've seen of the structure of MQTT..). A Security schema, for instance, would want the status of all the security related nodes, without concern for the House hierarchy. Having a /Doors/ collection is not out of place here. If your alarm system had to ask the House node to relay everything, there'd be too many points of failure, and the complexity would make it hard to find bugs. A command and control schema would want to subscribe directly to it's devices as well, both for reliability and reduced headaches when trying to figure something out. For a full-home setup or larger (business, campus...), it makes sense to think of the schema more in three dimensions. This brings up the question: Can a parallel schema be run on a different broker instance? Security, especially, would benefit if that is possible.

[@chrisrosenkreuz23]

for some reason I feel you have a ponytail

[@TheHookUp]

Lmao, I do not.

[@ismzaxxon]

For anyone not in northern america (the rest of the world) when he says pound sign, he means"cross hatch" not the UK pound sign.

[@tjmarx]

I always thought MQTT was pronounced M-Cute

[@RSP13]

Please, blink.

[@cfvgd]

Super confusing.