Help me with a Smart Home Interview – US Participants Needed

[akbooer]

General discussion on all things MQTT.

[akbooer]

Does anyone out there run an MQTT broker on a Synology NAS?

As part of a general infrastructure revamp, including a new NAS for backup and streaming, I’m about to press the button on a Synology.

Thinking a bit more broadly, I’d quite like to move some of my HA apps to that platform. I’ve never investigated Docker for hosting apps, but first up, I thought that MQTT might be a good step... especially since it’s supported by Shelly devices.

The low-end series don’t seem to support virtual machine hosting, although I don’t even know if that’s necessary for MQTT. Advice welcomed.

[toggledbits]

I have a DS918+. I don't use MQTT on it, but there is a docker add-on and you can run MQTT in a docker container.

I found this: https://diyprojects.io/install-mqtt-mosquitto-broker-nas-synology-dsm-6-2-docker/

[kfxo]

Which synology NAS are you looking at? I have a DS920+ and run MQTT in a docker container. Works great and easy to set up. Some of the lower end ones may not support docker.

[rafale77]

Not all that helpful probably since I am not using Synology but I do run mosquitto on a QNAP NAS inside a VM... the same VM which openLuup is running on.
I don't think Synology has anything equivalent to QNAP (able to swap the CPU) and is a lot more expensive for the equivalent hardware, granted with maybe a better OS. I have been a long time QNAP user and have been very happy with them.
It is my NVR/Backup (Time Machine)/Router (pfSense)/Zway-openLuup /HomeAssistant/NAS/download center/Video/Music Streamer etc... It is also the machine on which I have implemented computer vision, having slapped on an nVidia GPU on it and integrated the whole thing into openLuup.
member @Trexx and I are also on the QNAP forum...

[akbooer]

@kfxo said in MQTT – setup and use:

Which synology NAS are you looking at?

DS420+

I've done a bit more homework and am convinced that this should work. I was earlier considering a DS420j, but don't think that would hack it. Hardware doesn't arrive until next Thursday, allegedly.

So, Docker is the way to do it? Is that a standard add-on? Your experience will be a very welcome assistance.

It might be the incentive I need to, finally, understand how some folk have configured openLuup to run in Docker. It would be nice to ditch my ageing BeagleBone Black, which is actually the core of my HA system.

[kfxo]

@akbooer said in MQTT – setup and use:

DS420+

I've done a bit more homework and am convinced that this should work. I was earlier considering a DS420j, but don't think that would hack it. Hardware doesn't arrive until next Thursday, allegedly.

Yeah I think that will work. Might want to consider adding ram out of the box. I bumped mine from 4 to 8, not sure what the 420+ offers.

So, Docker is the way to do it? Is that a standard add-on? Your experience will be a very welcome assistance.

Synology offers Docker in their package center and provides pretty good documentation on their support pages on how to use it. The internet offers tons of guides for setting up different docker containers specifically on a synology. You want to make sure you set up the volumes in each docker container correctly to map to shared volumes on your synology so your data is persistent.

[therealdb]

I've built my own MQTT broker and I'm running it on my mini-PC (Intel i3 nuc) with openLuup, my own framework of things and much more. Once you'll start MQTT, you'll never look back.

Latest addition was a nice Windows app that it's routing all the messages from the Vera/other system to my own desktop. Since I can subscribe for topics, I'm publishing a special one for alerts from the Vera (via an HTTP call) and then dispatching it, via Telegram and to my own desktop PC. Very easy to do, very powerful, thanks to the pub/sub architecture of MQTT.

[akbooer]

@therealdb said in MQTT – setup and use:

I've built my own MQTT broker

Yes, I wanted to try that myself, just to understand it more fully, but OTOH i'm also trying to move to more off-the-shelf things (except, of course, with openLuup!) Any further details on how youdid that (not Lua, I suppose...)

[therealdb]

@akbooer yep, I've used C# and it's running on Linux with .net 5.

I used a pre made library (MQTTNET) and it's very similar to the bridge I posted this summer, bridging mqtt to openluup. It's my Orchestrator and I've since added new things, like opensprinkler, miflora and fullykiosk.

Ie, I'm using one shelly to detect if it's raining and automatically update the value in opensprinkler via http.

[Crille]

I have about 15 sonoff devices running Tasmota and ever since I flashed my first one years ago I planned to use MQTT but never convinced myself to get started as it works really good with Lua http calls and later the virtual http plugin and internal Tasmota rules for sensor reporting.
Now that I moved to openLuup and it has MQTT capabilities I really want to get it going but don't know how/where to start.
Anyone up for a short getting started with openLuup MQTT and Tasmota? That would be very much appreciated!

[therealdb]

@crille right now only shellies are automagically discovered and supported, but you could just create devices and map variables by hand. I was thinking of adding support for them as well, starting from @akbooer Shelly support.

[akbooer]

I could certainly think of adding a Tasmota bridge. What do I need to know about them...?

[akbooer]

I’ve just been looking here...

MQTT - Tasmota

and, I have to say (unless I’m missing something) it seems to be a bit of a free-for-all compared to the rather well thought-out topic structure of Shellies. I suppose that this is more or less inevitable for open source stuff.

[therealdb]

@akbooer yes, but announcements messages are rich and well structured. I could post something, since I have different sensor attached. I’ve also looked at the Shelly bridge, and I could send other samples (Shelly 1, Shelly 1 with temperature sensor, Shelly plug, Shelly button, Shelly uni, Shelly em) if necessary.

[akbooer]

@therealdb said in MQTT – setup and use:

I could send other samples (Shelly 1, Shelly 1 with temperature sensor, Shelly plug, Shelly button, Shelly uni, Shelly em) if necessary.

Shellies, I find, are really well documented here:

Welcome to Shelly Technical Documentation | Shelly Technical Documentation

so no need of other examples (you might tell me your priorities.)

For Tasmota, though, I failed to get that level of understanding from their docs, so an example might help.

[akbooer]

@therealdb

I've just added Shelly bridge support for Shelly 1/1PM (I think) in development v21.3.28.

If you're able to check, that would be great.

If it's all OK, then I'll move on to the others.

[therealdb]

@akbooer I'll try it later tomorrow, since this is a family movie night. meanwhile, here's a couple of messages from my broker:

tasmota/discovery/id

config = {"ip":"192.168.1.50","dn":"tasmota-dehum","fn":["tasmota-dehum",null,null,null,null,null,null,null],"hn":"tasmota-dehum","mac":"XXX","md":"Sonoff TH","ty":0,"if":0,"ofln":"Offline","onln":"Online","state":["OFF","ON","TOGGLE","HOLD"],"sw":"9.3.1","t":"tasmota-dehum","ft":"%prefix%/%topic%/","tp":["cmnd","stat","tele"],"rl":[1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0],"swc":[-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1],"swn":[null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null],"btn":[0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0],"so":{"4":0,"11":0,"13":0,"17":0,"20":0,"30":0,"68":0,"73":0,"82":0,"114":0,"117":0},"lk":1,"lt_st":0,"sho":[0,0,0,0],"ver":1}

sensors = {"sn":{"Time":"2021-03-26T23:48:03","SI7021":{"Temperature":15.8,"Humidity":73.4,"DewPoint":11.0},"TempUnit":"C"},"ver":1}

--

config = {"ip":"192.168.1.53","dn":"tasmota-watertank","fn":["tasmota-watertank",null,null,null,null,null,null,null],"hn":"tasmota-watertank","mac":"ECFABC5F0A29","md":"Generic","ty":0,"if":0,"ofln":"Offline","onln":"Online","state":["OFF","ON","TOGGLE","HOLD"],"sw":"9.3.1","t":"tasmota-watertank","ft":"%prefix%/%topic%/","tp":["cmnd","stat","tele"],"rl":[0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0],"swc":[-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1],"swn":[null,null,null,null,null,null,null,null],"btn":[0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0],"so":{"4":0,"11":0,"13":0,"17":0,"20":0,"30":0,"68":0,"73":0,"82":0,"114":0,"117":0},"lk":1,"lt_st":0,"sho":[0,0,0,0],"ver":1}

sensors = {"sn":{"Time":"2021-03-15T13:47:43","DS18B20":{"Id":"3C01D6070BEA","Temperature":15.3},"SR04":{"Distance":58.351},"TempUnit":"C"},"ver":1}

--

sensors = {"sn":{"Time":"2021-03-28T09:21:22","BME280":{"Temperature":20.2,"Humidity":50.0,"DewPoint":9.4,"Pressure":967.1},"TSL2561":{"Illuminance":113.900,"IR":2135,"Broadband":6591},"PressureUnit":"hPa","TempUnit":"C"},"ver":1}

--

sensors = {"sn":{"Time":"2021-03-28T09:21:22","BME280":{"Temperature":20.2,"Humidity":50.0,"DewPoint":9.4,"Pressure":967.1},"TSL2561":{"Illuminance":113.900,"IR":2135,"Broadband":6591},"PressureUnit":"hPa","TempUnit":"C"},"ver":1}

Status are published under tele/devicename

STATE = {"Time":"2021-03-28T19:17:42","Uptime":"13T06:19:46","UptimeSec":1145986,"Heap":23,"SleepMode":"Dynamic","Sleep":50,"LoadAvg":19,"MqttCount":84,"POWER":"OFF","Wifi":{"AP":1,"SSId":"XXX","BSSId":"XXX","Channel":12,"RSSI":60,"Signal":-70,"LinkCount":3,"Downtime":"0T00:01:32"}}


SENSORS = {"Time":"2021-03-28T19:17:42","DS18B20":{"Id":"3C01D607ACFE","Temperature":13.8},"TempUnit":"C"}

The format of sensors is very similar to discovery, but more compact.

There's also tele/device/LWT (Online, Offline) to handle "Last Will and Testament". I'm using it to notify of device being dropped out of the network via CommFailure and similar.

I'm sure @ArcherS has many more sensors than me.

[ArcherS]

I have some 10 Tasmota devices with a number of different sensors reporting temperature etc. It is very easy to combine the sensors on one device, the information for all attached sensors are included in one SENSOR message for that Tasmota device.

Some data from them:

AM2301 (temp, humidity and dew point temp)
tele/tasmota_E0395C/SENSOR = {"Time":"2021-03-28T19:56:35","AM2301":{"Temperature":5.7,"Humidity":64.6,"DewPoint":-0.5},"TempUnit":"C"}

DS18B20 (temp) Four DS18B20 connected to one Tasmota
tele/tasmota_2ECD0B/SENSOR = {"Time":"2021-03-28T19:49:06","DS18B20-1":{"Id":"000005B4E469","Temperature":5.8},"DS18B20-2":{"Id":"3C01D60701B8","Temperature":17.9},"DS18B20-3":{"Id":"3C01D6074A47","Temperature":20.3},"DS18B20-4":{"Id":"3C01D6079246","Temperature":9.3},"AM2301":{"Temperature":5.4,"Humidity":75.0,"DewPoint":1.3},"TempUnit":"C"}

and in a device that also has an AM2301, since it is only one DS18B20 it does not get the "-nn" suffix
tele/tasmota_845CBC/SENSOR = {"Time":"2021-03-28T20:11:35","DS18B20":{"Id":"000005B5E8ED","Temperature":12.0},"AM2301":{"Temperature":11.2,"Humidity":40.6,"DewPoint":-1.7},"TempUnit":"C"}

BME280 ( temp, humidity, dew pont temp, air pressure) and BH1750 (light sensor in lux) in one device
tele/tasmota_81FF56/SENSOR = {"Time":"2021-03-28T19:49:35","BME280":{"Temperature":6.6,"Humidity":65.4,"DewPoint":0.5,"Pressure":1009.4},"BH1750":{"Illuminance":0},"PressureUnit":"hPa","TempUnit":"C"}

BLE sensors (temp, humidity, dew point temp) below three Xiaomi sensors identified by their MAC
tele/tasmota_F181DC/SENSOR = {"Time":"2021-03-28T20:01:38","ATC-f159bf":{"Temperature":21.5,"Humidity":48.0,"DewPoint":10.0,"Battery":69,"RSSI":-80},"ATC-9446bf":{"Temperature":22.6,"Humidity":42.0,"DewPoint":9.0,"Battery":83,"RSSI":-89},"ATC-6d5d44":{"Temperature":14.3,"Humidity":46.0,"DewPoint":2.8,"Battery":63,"RSSI":-84},"TempUnit":"C"}

MH-Z19B C02 meter (CO2 and temp) below in a device that also has a AM2301
tele/tasmota_7EC9D9/SENSOR = {"Time":"2021-03-28T20:03:49","AM2301":{"Temperature":20.7,"Humidity":48.1,"DewPoint":9.3},"MHZ19B":{"Model":"B","CarbonDioxide":655,"Temperature":22.0},"TempUnit":"C"}

[Buxton]

@akbooer Tasmota energy sensor

{
  "Time": "2021-03-28T21:51:01",
  "ENERGY": {
    "TotalStartTime": "2020-06-07T00:10:43",
    "Total": 2356.063,
    "Yesterday": 7.056,
    "Today": 6.459,
    "Period": 24,
    "Power": 285,
    "ApparentPower": 302,
    "ReactivePower": 99,
    "Factor": 0.95,
    "Voltage": 123,
    "Current": 2.453
  }
}