👷MQTT (WIP)

MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport) is a lightweight, publish-subscribe network protocol that transports messages between devices. Designed for constrained environments, it is ideal for machine-to-machine (M2M) or Internet of Things (IoT) scenarios. MQTT operates over TCP/IP and aims to be simple and efficient, ensuring high performance and reliability even on low-bandwidth networks.

In MQTT, topics are used to filter and direct messages between clients. A topic is a string, typically representing a hierarchy, that defines the destination of the message. Topics are case-sensitive and use a forward slash (/) as a delimiter to create levels of hierarchy. For example, home/kitchen/temperature and home/livingroom/humidity are distinct topics.

Creating an MQTT instance

Creating an MQTT instance

The create function creates an MQTT instance with which a client connection to an MQTT broker over an arbitrary transport method (TCP, TLS, WebSocket, ecc) can be created. The MQTT client automatically handles the following:

  • Regular server pings

  • QoS flow

  • Automatic reconnections

  • Start publishing before being connected

Simply drag the create function onto the board, name your instance and trigger.

Deleting an MQTT instance

Drag the delete function onto the board, insert the name of the instance to be deleted and trigger it.

MQTT functions

connect

With the connect function, you can connect the MQTT instance to a broker.

To create the connection, drag the connect function onto the board. Insert url: {url} into the url field, where you replace the curly brackets and their content with your URL. The following protocols are supported: mqtt, mqtts, tcp, tls, ws, wss, wxs, alis.

Then, in the second input field, add options: {} as the main key and insert the following parameters in object format in the brackets as needed.

ParameterTypeDefaultDescription

username

String

The username required by your broker, if any.

password

String

The password required by your broker, if any.

wsOptions

Object

{}

Specific options for WebSockets. Have a look at: https://github.com/websockets/ws/blob/master/doc/ws.md.

keepalive

Integer

60

Keep alive interval, set to 0 to disable.

reschedulePings

Boolean

true

Reschedule ping messages after sending packets.

protocolId

String

MQTT

Protocol ID

protocolVersion

Integer

4

Protocol Version

clean

Boolean

true

Set to false to receive QoS 1 and 2 messages while offline.

reconnectPeriod

Integer

1000

Interval between two reconnections in milliseconds. Disable auto reconnect by setting to 0.

connectTimeout

Integer

30000

Time to wait before a CONNACK is received in milliseconds.

queueQoSZero

Boolean

true

If connection is broken, queue outgoing QoS zero messages.

autoUseTopicAlias

Boolean

false

Enabling automatic Topic Alias assign functionality.

resubscribe

Boolean

true

If connection is broken and reconnects, subscribed topics are automatically subscribed again.

publish

With the publish function, you can send a message to a topic. Insert the topic in the first box, the message in the second one and lastly, decide on the options to publish with.

The options need to be constructed as an object, with the highest key being options with the following three parameters nested inside, as needed:

ParameterTypeDefaultDescription

qos

Integer

0

Quality of Service level

retain

Boolean

false

Whether to retain the message or not. For an explanation of retained messages, see here.

dup

Boolean

false

Marks the message as duplicate.

publishJson

The publishJson function works in the same way as the publish function, but delivers a JSON message instead. Therefore, in the second input field, you should insert a JSON object.

subscribe

With the subscribe function, you can subscribe to one or multiple topics. If you only want to subscribe to one topic or with a wildcard, insert the topic in the first input box and the qos setting in the second one. If you want to subscribe to multiple topics, ignore the options box and insert an object into the topic input box in the following scheme: 

topic1: {qos: 0}
topic2: {qos: 1}

Topic Wildcards

MQTT supports two types of wildcards for subscribing to multiple topics:

  1. Single-level wildcard (+): Matches exactly one topic level. For instance, home/+/temperature matches home/kitchen/temperature and home/livingroom/temperature.

  2. Multi-level wildcard (#): Matches all subsequent levels. For example, home/# matches home/kitchen/temperature, home/livingroom/humidity, and any other topic starting with home/.

Using these wildcards, you can flexibly subscribe to a range of topics.

onJsonMessage

The onJsonMessage function needs to be triggered once after the app is started to start listening to events. It then converts the received events into JSON objects.

onStringMessage

The onStringMessage function needs to be triggered once after the app is started to start listening to events. It then converts the received events into strings.

onBinaryMessage

The onBinaryMessage function needs to be triggered once after the app is started to start listening to events. It leaves the received events in binary format.

unsubscribe

With the unsubscribe function, you can remove a subscription by inserting the topic name in the input field and triggering.

end

With end, you can disconnect from the MQTT broker. The disconnect may take a second, but can be forced to immediately happen, without waiting for the inflight messages to be handled, by inserting forced: true in the input field.

isConnected

isConnected simply returns true if a connection to an MQTT broker is open and false if not.

isReconnecting

With isReconnecting you can check if the client is currently trying to reconnect to the MQTT broker. A reconnection in progress is indicated by true.

getLastMessageId

You can output the message ID of the last message sent by the client with getLastMessageId.

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