Is MQTT Necessary? or, Use Case for MQTT?
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I am using MQTT mostly because of the reasons @mfalkvidd has given. It is a industry standard protocol and it "opens up" my home automation project. For instance, I am using MqttWarn to publish messages to Instapush independently from the controller I am using. Furthermore, I am going to experiment with OwnTracks or other 3rd party components.
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OK, reading back over my own post, I realize I have omitted an assumption. I probably should have stated that I am leaning heavily toward using OpenHab as hub software, running on the new Raspberry Pi.
So perhaps I should have phrased my question as "Is MQTT necessary if you are using OpenHab (and especially, with MySensors)?"
Because it seems to me that they are doing largely the same thing (well, insofar as functionally being "the glue" that connects everything together, although achieving it through vastly different means; also, obviously OpenHab is doing much much more, giving you a UI, controller logic/scripts, etc...)?
Or, in other words, does the functionality of OpenHab supersede (and obviously, also greatly extend) that of MQTT?
So, assuming that I was able to implement everything I wanted to do via MySensors + OpenHab, then potentially I could do that just via straight serial connection from RPi/OpenHab to MySensors gateway device (Arduino)? Have I got that about right?
What else would I be missing out on by not using MQTT? Potentially not being able to interface with some other device down the road? It seems as OpenHab has (or will soon have) bindings and integrations for just about everything. And it seems that the MySensors bindings for OpenHab are getting nowadays to a pretty good usability/stability as well.
In the event of any incompatibility or other issue, I would suspect it would be only a matter of time until someone from one of those 2 communities (perhaps even myself :) ) might contribute some code to remedy the issue, extend functionally, add a feature, etc...
Have I got this about right then? Or, what else am I not seeing?
EDIT: Does MQTT provide some sort of better message queuing / acknowledgement / buffering / persistence than MySensors library (my understanding is that is all done by the MySensors library) for messages on the RF network?
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Thanks for the clarification, @hek!
I think I have done just about as much research as is needed to select hub hardware, software, and sort of overall topology and protocols, etc... And I've already got several ideas for various nodes, of course!
Which means, time to order parts soon and start tinkering! I'm excited! :)
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@TRS-80, this topic is very interesting (so I though I would revive it :) )
I'm building my system based on Openhhab2 which it a pretty awesome framework to say the least. Immensely powerful.
Your post here touches on one area that I just can't get my head around - the link between OH2 on the Pi and Arduino RF boards. I'm probably missing something obvious but it's never been clear to me.
Admittedly I haven't set up any Arduino-based sensors yet but I'm hoping to start shortly (my dream is to build motion sensors as they are horribly expensive to buy manufactured (i.e. Aeotec etc)).
Have you bypassed MQTT or has it become integral in your workflow?
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With OH2 you can use either serial gateway or mqtt. Mqtt allows you to have much more flexibility in terms of monitoring data or send data to your controller: for example if you want to tinker with sensor values for testing purposes, you could just power off sensor and send data you want using a simple mqtt client, or if you want to play around with multiple controllers you only need to configure them to subscribe to mqtt and they can run simultaneously. I've even seen a post about using zabbix to plot data from mqtt
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With OH2 you can use either serial gateway or mqtt. Mqtt allows you to have much more flexibility in terms of monitoring data or send data to your controller: for example if you want to tinker with sensor values for testing purposes, you could just power off sensor and send data you want using a simple mqtt client, or if you want to play around with multiple controllers you only need to configure them to subscribe to mqtt and they can run simultaneously. I've even seen a post about using zabbix to plot data from mqtt
Thanks for the quick response.
It will be my first implementation of MQTT so I'm pretty much a blank canvas. I'll go with setting up the MQTT broker (server it's called now I believe) on my Raspberry Pi 3.
Installing OpenHAB2 on the Pi has been made a breeze by an unattended installer called OpenHABian. Bundled with the installer is an MQTT option which should set it up (it's accessed via a menu).
I'll be happy to share my lessons learned here, no doubt there will be a few :)
I've still got to order a few sensors and boards etc to get started so it will take a little while. That;s why I read this thread to get an idea of how the components all talk to each other. That would at least help me determine what I need to buy upfront so I can get busy with it. Any advice would be appreciated (just to get a motion sensor up and running)
I imagine it can become addictive!
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For the OpenHAB users: take a look at the MQTT eventbus. This is really cool!
I'm using OpenHAB 2 with the MySensors binding and currently three serial gateways. From OpenHAB 2 the messages are send to the MQTT broker to Node Red.So:
Serial gateway <-> OpenHAB 2 (with binding) <-> MQTT (Mosquitto) <-> Node Red -
Thanks for the quick response.
It will be my first implementation of MQTT so I'm pretty much a blank canvas. I'll go with setting up the MQTT broker (server it's called now I believe) on my Raspberry Pi 3.
Installing OpenHAB2 on the Pi has been made a breeze by an unattended installer called OpenHABian. Bundled with the installer is an MQTT option which should set it up (it's accessed via a menu).
I'll be happy to share my lessons learned here, no doubt there will be a few :)
I've still got to order a few sensors and boards etc to get started so it will take a little while. That;s why I read this thread to get an idea of how the components all talk to each other. That would at least help me determine what I need to buy upfront so I can get busy with it. Any advice would be appreciated (just to get a motion sensor up and running)
I imagine it can become addictive!
@UglyKidJoe
I started with openhabian too, but I figured it's too complicated to start with. So now I moved to domoticz that's much simpler for beginners: at the moment I'm only using one ethernet gateway for sensors but I am planning to move to mqtt later on, after I learned better how to make sensors nodes. -
Sidenote: MySensors has a Node RED plugin available as well. It's also a good alternative for tinkering/route messages from a MySensors network. Even more flexible then a raw MQTT broker.
This got me interested so I looked at Node Red. Wow! I started looking at some youtube intros and it looks very good. So let the learning curve begin :)
I suppose the first challenge will be to figure out how the architectures relate to one another.
Would I be able to use Node Red with the OH2 Z-Wave binding as well as mysensors for instance? Similarly, OH2 controls my WEMO lights, so they will also play with Node Red via OH2?
I know these are real noob questions but it would be a huge help to get set off in the right direction
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For the OpenHAB users: take a look at the MQTT eventbus. This is really cool!
I'm using OpenHAB 2 with the MySensors binding and currently three serial gateways. From OpenHAB 2 the messages are send to the MQTT broker to Node Red.So:
Serial gateway <-> OpenHAB 2 (with binding) <-> MQTT (Mosquitto) <-> Node Red -
@UglyKidJoe
I have been using OpenHAB and MQTT for a number of years now.The reason for using MQTT and not just a serial connection from the MySensors GW is partly the flexibility as many have stated previously here. Easy to test, using e.g. the mqtt.fx tool. If you want to know what is going on you simply connect to the MQTT stream and "snoop" on the messages.
Another reason is that I am running three geographical sites on one OH installation. OH is running on a NUC at my home. There is also an MQTT GW here. Two other My Sensors MQTT-GW are running remotely in two summer houses. The three GW connect over internet to a cloud-based MQTT broker and OH connects to the same broker. In that way I do not have to open any ports into my home network for access should I have had a local MQTT-broker at home.
