MQTT Broker

What is MQTT?

MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport) is a lightweight publish/subscribe communication protocol specifically designed for the Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communication.

Basic MQTT Concepts

Publish/Subscribe Model:

• Unlike traditional client-server communication, MQTT uses a model where devices don’t need to know each other’s addresses
• Devices communicate through a central point - the MQTT Broker
• One device publishes messages to a specific topic
• Other devices subscribe to these topics and automatically receive messages

Topics:

• An organizational structure for messages, similar to folders in a file system
• Example: home/living_room/temperature, home/kitchen/light/status
• Devices can subscribe to specific topics or use wildcards (home/# = everything in home)

MQTT Advantages:

• Extremely low data and energy consumption
• Works on slow or unstable networks
• Simple to implement
• Scalable from small to large systems

MQTT Broker in TapHome

MQTT Broker is a service for managing MQTT communication between devices. The Broker can be run on an external machine or directly on the TapHome controller.

TapHome MQTT Broker functions as:

• Central mediator for all MQTT messages in the system
• Bridge between TapHome and third-party devices (Shelly, Zigbee2MQTT, Tasmota, and others)
• Local service - all communication stays in your network, no data is sent to the cloud

How to activate MQTT Broker in TapHome

1. Go to Settings → Hardware and select MQTT Broker
2. Enter configuration details including port number, client ID prefix, username, and password
3. Save the settings to activate the service

Configuration Details

After activation, the MQTT communication configuration is defined in Hardware → Packet parser.

Practical Usage Example

Scenario: You have a Shelly device (smart plug) and want to integrate it into TapHome.

1. Activate MQTT Broker in TapHome (following the steps above)
2. Configure the Shelly device - in its web interface, enter the TapHome controller’s IP address and MQTT broker port
3. Create a Packet Parser module in TapHome with MQTT protocol
4. Set up MQTT topics - for example, shellies/shellyplug-s-12345/relay/0 for relay control
5. Device is connected - now you can control Shelly through the TapHome app and create smart rules

Result: Shelly publishes its state to an MQTT topic, TapHome receives notifications about changes. When you want to turn Shelly on/off, TapHome publishes a command to the corresponding topic.

Related Links

• Manual Packet Parser Configuration
• Application Settings