We are excited to announce that Bevywise MQTTRoute is now get-at-able in AWS Marketplace. MQTTRoute is always known for its extendability and scalability. And now we want to make this fully functional MQTT Broker completely available and easily accessible for all users. Hence we are launching the FREE version of MQTT Broker in AWS Marketplace where you can quickly deploy MQTT Broker on AWS EC2 using pre-made AMIs.

FREE AWS MQTT Broker

Everywhere around the world is getting filled with MQTT based devices. While developing IoT applications it is always needed to have a messaging broker / server which should act as a middleware between your MQTT / IoT enabled devices. Hence, a reliable & well-built MQTT broker is a key part of every IoT applications & projects but setting one up, managing, monitoring and debugging is a complex one and time-consuming. Also, though there are numerous commercial MQTT Brokers available in the market, early adopters & small project developers cannot afford them as they will end up paying more. And so, we want our MQTT Broker to be affordable and people should be able to manage their devices at minimal cost. So we are enabling the AWS version of the MQTTRoute for 25 devices FREE with the IOT mobile application.

Rapid-Set up on AWS EC2

The internet of things is all about mobility and managing your devices and sensors from anywhere in the world. But when using MQTT Broker on-premise it will be either a time taking or a challenging solution for IoT application which requires high level management & maintenance. Considering the quick launch of the IoT projects / applications and then deploying the necessary data center with a server for the MQTT Broker will expect more assets for the primary set up & installation. Also, it always demands a system administrator or qualified professional to monitor the application 24/7. In addition, expanding and scaling the application in on-premises will be highly complex when moving to new servers. 

Hence we are making our MQTT Broker accessible in AWS cloud  (Elastic Compute Cloud) EC2 instance for FREE where for a minimal cost you can quickly connect your application / project to high-quality service. This agreeable & favourable installation sets up a completely functioning Bevywise MQTTRoute AWS EC2 instance with the sizing of your need on your AWS account.

With the FREE version on AWS, we are aiming to make everyone take advantage of their IoT application development. This version will be beneficial to build any sort of IoT applications and people could get it ready in their budget.

Get started with your IoT implementation by utilizing the FREE MQTT Broker from AWS Marketplace.

To know more on the functionalities of the FREE AWS MQTT Broker & step by step procedure for installation & set up, navigate to this link. 

Kindly reach support if you have any queries.

IoT Application development is required today at all levels. People with very low coding knowledge needs to build what is needed for them. MQTTRoute helps customers will be able to embed their ML & AI algorithms and create their own application. MQTTRoute helps you host and manage your application easily. This just leaves your development challenge for your IOT Server application. MQTT Broker comes with a default user interface, however visualization needs to be built for specific vertical. We recently run an internal hackathon at Bevywise to build applications over our framework. Interestingly, we were able to build an IOT application in a day. The application built was a Industrial Furnace monitoring. This blog portrays the hacks used to build the application.

IoT Application for Industrial Temperature Monitoring

Monitoring and control of temperature of the furnaces is crucial with respect to its usage in the industries as it directly affects the quality of the product that is being created. We created a simulated device similar to a monitoring edge device which pushes data to the MQTT Broker. The goals set for the application were:

• live graph of the incoming temperature
• Historical hourly average of the temperature
• Alarm when the temperature exceeds a range
• Alarm when current temperature exceeds the previous hour average

Live Temperature View

 

MQTT Broker is programmed in a way that it pushes the incoming device data to the user interface using the web socket. You will be able to add your own code to create live graphs. In this hackathon, plotly is used by the developer. The data on temperature of the furnace collected is presented as a line graph in the dashboard. This is done by configuring custom_ui_server.py file.

Historical data Analysis

 

The historical graph on hourly average data can be created by the Data Crunching process. The schedule module is used to automate the creation of hourly average data. Custom implementation for the average of data developed in a separate method and configured in the schedule to be called every 60 minutes in  custom_scheduler.py file.

 

After processing the data, the data is pushed to the user interface through the web socket. The bar graph is created using plotly to display the crunched data

 

Have you got the next big idea of smart IoT implementation but not clear about how and where to start?

Everything you need to get started with your IoT implementation is here. We have made a recent update on MQTT Broker version 3.3. The new version comes with Mobile app support which makes the MQTT Broker more scalable for any IoT implementation. With the new update any budding developers or early adopters who are intended to take advantage of smart automation can make a successful smart IoT implementation faster & easier. This article provides a detailed view on how to perform an effective IoT implementation with Raspberry pi MQTT Broker.

An Exclusive FREE Raspberry Pi MQTT Broker

Every IoT implementation or application development needs a specific components combined together to achieve your specific target successfully.

In that case, any smart IoT implementation needs 4 basic components

• IoT devices (sensors or actuators)

• IoT middleware (MQTT Broker)

• Automation Platform or HUB (Home Assistant or OpenHAB) If required

• Smart Phone APP

And that is why we developed an exclusive MQTT Broker package which acts as a middleware to communicate between your MOTT enabled devices along with the mobile application, home automation platform integration & more…

We want to ensure that this package should be feasible to develop any sort of smart IoT implementations and people could get their things ready in their budget. And we make this MQTT Broker package specifically available in raspbian OS for FREE, as the Raspberry Pi can be an inexpensive and powerful one suits for all your IoT implementations. This could really be an excellent solution/benefit for those who aren’t comfortable with the premium licensing of most commercial solutions / platforms in the market.

Get your IoT devices ready

The selection of your IoT / edge devices or sensors depends on your implementation. To give you an idea, let us consider a smart home implementation. You need a light sensor, temperature sensor, door sensor & more. This varies upon your needs. With our FREE MQTT Broker package you can connect upto 10 MQTT enabled devices or sensors.

Set up the MQTT Broker on Raspberry pi

Start setting up the raspberry pi by using the below steps.

Step 1: Install Raspbian OS in your Raspberry Pi (choose the one which best suits your need)

• To install Raspbian Os,
  You need to download 2 software and 1 OS i.e. Raspbian for this complete process.
• 1st software: The first software is Win32 Disk Imager. (https://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/)
• 2nd software: Second software is SD Card Formatter. https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/
• Raspbian OS: This is the Main operating system of the Pi. https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/
• Extract all the files to the desktop.

Step 2: Get the SD Card and the Card Reader

• Get a minimum 8GB class 10 SD card with a card reader. Insert that card into the card reader and plug that to the USB port.

Step 3: Check the Drive in Which the SD Card Is Mounted

• Go to my computer or My PC and find the drive name where the SD card is mounted.

Step 4: Format the SD Card

• Open SD Card Formatter and select the drive you noticed in the previous step.
• Click on format and don’t alter any other options.
• When the formatting is completed, click on OK.

Step 5: Write the OS on the SD Card

• Open win32diskimager.
• Browse the .img file of Raspbian OS that was extracted from the downloaded file.
• Click ‘on open’ and then click ‘on Write’. If any warnings pop up then ignore them by clicking OK. It will only take a few minutes.

Step 6: Eject the SD Card

Now your OS is installed on your Raspberry Pi.

Installing MQTT Broker in the Raspberry Pi

1. Before installing the MQTT broker to our Raspberry Pi, we need to update the operating system.
All we need to do to update the system is to run the following two commands in the terminal

sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade

2. Once the system has finished updating, we can now install the MQTT Broker software.

Download our exclusive Raspberry pi MQTT Broker from the below link and it might get downloaded in a zip format.

Unzip the broker file and then open terminal and run the broker

During the installation process, the package manager will automatically configure the Broker to start on boot.

3. At this point, you will now have the  MQTT broker up and running on your device.

You can verify that it is installed and running by using the command below.

sudo systemctl status broker

This command will return the status of the “broker” service.

You should see the text “active (running)” if the service has started up properly.

By default broker will start running at http://localhost:8080 or http://<your IP>:8080. The default credentials to login to the dashboard is

• Username – admin
• Passsword – admin

Now start connecting your IoT devices / sensors from the UI itself.

In order to connect your devices more securely, enable authentication inside broker.conf folder. The default location of conf will be Bevywise/MQTTRoute/conf. 

[AUTHENTICATION]

AUTHENTICATION_ENABLED = YES

# YES || NO

Save your changes and rerun the MQTT Broker. Now you will be able to see the security tab on the default dashboard.

The authentication keys present there can be used to connect your IoT devices. You can also generate a new one to connect.

You can view the status of your device once you get your devices connected & data published by it on the dashboard. You can create your own dashboard with pre-built widgets to visualize the data published. To know more on Dashboard usage and other MQTT Broker feature & how to control your connected devices, visit MQTT Broker help.

Integration with Automation Platform

This part is especially for home users who are intended to develop their home automation system. Building your automation system completely from scratch will be a little bit unrealistic for DIY users. That is why there are number of home automation platforms / frameworks available in the market that can get your home automation devices up and running in no time.

The two of the most used open source home automation platforms includes

• Home Assistant

• Open HAB

As I said before, home automation platform can provide everything you need to develop your home automation system. You may ask, what is need of MQTT Broker here??…We have got you covered. Remember that your IoT devices / sensors are MQTT enabled and the initial step to get started with the Home automation platform is to complete MQTT integration with it. Ergo, you need an MQTT Broker for MQTT integration with automation platform. 

That being so, Bevywise MQTT Broker supports integration with both Home Assistant & Open HAB.

Once you are ready with the MQTT Broker on Raspberry pi set up, starts integrating with Home Assistant / Open HAB.

Check out the integration steps below.

Home Assistant Integration

The first step is to complete the Home Assistant installation procedure.

You can check the installation steps here

https://www.home-assistant.io/installation/raspberrypi/

Make sure you download the right package for Raspbian OS.

Once your installation steps are done, you can go ahead with the integration part.

• Navigate to the http://homeassistant.local:8123/

• Start creating your home assistant account & set up your configurations.

• Make sure you enable authentication in broker.conf file. The default location of conf will be Bevywise/MQTTRoute/conf

• Now navigate to the Home Assistant UI & click integrations tab.

• Click “Add integration” button.

• Select MQTT from the list.

• You will view the screen asking for the broker details

• Enter broker IP or host name as 127.0.0.1

• By default port will be set as 1883. In case if TLS is enabled in the broker.conf file, you need to change the port here.

• Now enter username and password which is provided in the security tab of MQTTRoute UI.

• Once done click submit. If your configurations are set correctly you will receive a success message. You can view the home assistant device connected to the MQTT Broker in Devices tab & list of message published.

  For complete details about MQTT Broker integration with Home Assistant refer this blog.

OpenHAB Integration

Let us start with the OpenHAB installation procedure.

You can check the installation steps here

https://www.openhab.org/download/

Once done navigate to the https://localhost:8443

Sign up to create a new OpenHAB account

Make sure you enable authentication in broker.conf file. The default location of conf will be Bevywise/MQTTRoute/conf

Once you finish your set up. Let us move on to Add-ons which is presented under the settings tab.

• Click Bindings under Add-ons

• Select MQTT-binding in the given list.

• Your MQTT-binding set up is completed now.

• Let us add MQTT Broker using Things tab.

• Add things by clicking the + icon present at the bottom.

• Now select MQTT Broker as Thing type from the list.

• The configuration need to be set correctly to make MQTT Broker & OpenHAB communication.

• Click show advanced.

• Provide IP or host name of MQTTRoute 127.0.0.1

• By default port will be set as 1883. In case if TLS is enabled in the broker.conf file. You need to change the port here.

• Now enter username and password which is provided in the security tab of MQTTRoute UI.

• Once done click submit. If your configurations are set correctly the toggle button will show Online. You can view the OpenHAB device connected to the MQTT Broker in Devices tab.

Now you can start controlling your home devices.

For complete details about MQTT Broker integration with OpenHAB refer this blog.

Mobile App Support

Your smart IoT implementation is not fully completed unless you control your devices right from your phone.

Smart phones play an important role in all IoT implementations. In any smart implementation, a smartphone app is used to perform several functions – onboarding devices, monitoring sensors, turning actuators on/off, creating rules – both when within the local network, or outside it.

Ergo, we have introduced MQTT Broker app recently for managing your MQTT devices along with the MQTT Broker.

Here are the simple steps to start monitoring devices right from your phone which are connected to the MQTT Broker. 

• Download Android App from play store and connect to your MQTTRoute server URL. Example : http://localhost:8080 or http://<your IP>:8080 if MQTTRoute runs in local network. In case you have deployed MQTT Broker in any cloud platform, use the instance URL (http://<domain name>.com)

• Make sure you have connected your devices to the MQTTRoute already. If not connect by using steps mentioned in “Installing MQTT Broker in the Raspberry Pi” section.

• You can now start creating dashboard & widgets to visualize & monitor devices on the go right from your android phone.

Get MQTT Broker App now on play store

We dwell in a fast moving environment where speed is crucial in every little thing we implement. This makes us set our heart on any technology which bring us aid to speed on whatever we do. That’s where mobile apps come in which enables people to control & manage everything at fingertips much faster & easier.

This makes us to think over an idea on providing mobile app support to monitor MQTT devices connected to the MQTTRoute. And Yes!! Today we are much excited to tell you that we have just launched our new MQTTRoute mobile app for MQTT users currently available on android with MQTTRoute 3.3. Continue reading to find out how it helps you!

Why MQTT Broker App?

MQTTRoute is a MQTT based finely crafted MQTT Broker developed to provide fast & reliable M2M communication to and from connected devices. MQTT Broker App works in conjunction with the MQTTRoute enabling you to run it on your android smart phone. Running MQTTRoute alone can provide you a powerful way to collect, monitor and visualize your data. But, when it comes to quickly accessing data, MQTTRoute with mobile app is the perfect choice. This makes it more appealing for the on the go users. With the new MQTTRoute app we provide you with the much more convenient & quicker way to manage & monitor your MQTT devices connected to the MQTTRoute.

We make it simple!

As we discussed earlier, In today’s technology world, mobile devices and the mobile applications that unlock their value—are the most popular way for people and businesses to acquire data from their internet connected devices. Businesses building IoT systems or utilizing MQTT / IoT implementation in order to stay relevant, responsive and successful, need to develop mobile applications to meet their customers demand. Yet mobile application development might seem daunting and it is not everyone’s cup of tea to spend much time developing mobile applications. Fortunately with MQTTRoute, it comes up with the MQTT Broker app which makes it easy to manage & control your MQTT / IoT applications and you no need to build it by your own.

Also, we make it more simple for you to customize your UI & to create multiple dashboards with pre-configured widgets from the app itself. This is because, we don’t want to restrict you to just view your MQTT data and we want to make you to present & visualize it in a way you need. This makes your IoT application, user and mobile friendly enabling to access & monitor MQTT devices anywhere.

Mobile App currently supports android and we are working to make it available soon in IOS.