mcsMQTT Plugin

[petez69]

Thanks Micheal, no errors on startup

[Steve Q]

I read through the manual in post 1. Sorry if this has already been covered in this thread.

I have a large xAP network which you helped me set up. It is working nicely in HS3. I'm looking to replace some of my xAP devices. I have purchased 4 Sonoff BAsic switches and flashed them with Tasmota ver 2.512 firmware. I have them up and running and I am able to control them via html commands sent from HS3.

I am now ready to move on to MQTT and I think I understand the basics of MQTT.

What is not clear to me is what MQTT software needs to be installed on my windows 10 computer that is running HS3. Does Mosquito need to be installed? What else?

Sorry for such a basic question, but I have no experience with Arduino or raspberry pi.

Steve Q

[Michael McSharry]

In the past couple weeks I have been responding to user input on improving the plugin. When it stabilizes I will update the manual, but the existing one still does provide a general description that can be leveraged.

Somewhere on your network you need to run a MQTT broker and this is normally Mosquitto. In my case I have it on an Odroid (RPi variant), but you can run it on Windows too. I have seen that some have some issues with running it on Windows. Just Google a bit to learn if anything special needs to be done to get it working on W10.

In the xAP world you needed an xAP Hub on each client because of the socket implementation limitations where only one application on a computer can bind to port 3669. In the MQTT case the protocol is TCP point to point rather than UDP broadcast so this port binding limitation does not exist. The MQTT broker, however, serves a similar function where it distributes the traffic to the listening clients. In the basic setup one MQTT broker is needed on a network. On a cloud setup multiple brokers exist with the local broker acting like an Access Point.

[bdickhaus]

I've been tinkering with making my own sensors using nodemcu's (esp8266) and was pleased to find this plugin to get it all hooked into HS3.

My first sensor was temperature and humidity. I got it working fine with mosquitto running on my HS3 server (Ubuntu) and had no trouble getting them discovered and defined as devices in HS3 using this plugin.

But, I realized that only the device string was getting updated, and I wanted to be able to track the value, and/or use the value in events. So I wrote a script to convert the string to value, and that is working.

I set it up to trigger on MQTT Topic received, and for my first test event, it worked fine.

But when I added subsequent events, the trigger value kept changing for all events when I changed one of them. I have four events, and if I change the trigger value on one, all four change.

Bill


Current Date/Time: 3/25/2018 7:23:07 PM
HomeSeer Version: HS3 Pro Edition 3.0.0.420
Linux version: Linux rock64 4.4.77-rockchip-ayufan-136 #1 SMP Thu Oct 12 09:14:48 UTC 2017 aarch64 aarch64 aarch64 GNU/Linux System Uptime: 2 Days 23 Hours 35 Minutes 51 Seconds
IP Address: 192.168.2.236
Number of Devices: 414
Number of Events: 240
Available Threads: 399
HSTouch Enabled: True
Event Threads: 0
Event Trigger Eval Queue: 0
Event Trigger Priority Eval Queue: 0
Device Exec Queue: 0
HSTouch Event Queue: 0
Email Send Queue: 0
Anti Virus Installed:

Enabled Plug-Ins
2.0.54.0: BLBackup
2.0.39.0: BLLAN
2.0.93.0: BLRF
2.0.75.0: BLSpeech
1.2.2.0: Device History
3.0.0.44: EasyTrigger
2.0.2.0: JowiHue
3.1.4.0: mcsMQTT
3.0.1.90: PHLocation
30.0.0.36: RFXCOM
3.0.5.7: SDJ-Health
3.0.0.79: weatherXML
3.0.1.206: Z-Wave

[Michael McSharry]

Something for me to look it about the trigger. What plugin version are you using?

You should not need a supplemental script. If you payload is a number then the plugin will update the device value. It is likely that you had the HS device created when the payload was non-numeric. You can override it from the Manual Setup tab and select the control to be a number. If this does not do it for you then I may not understand why you are using the script.

The past couple weeks the plugin has changed much based upon user feedback so it you got a 3.0.x.x version then you should get the 3.1.x.x from the updater. I will be submitting 3.2.0.0 soon.

[bdickhaus]

I did want the plugin to do it, but it wasn't working. But I figured it out. The example code I used in the sensor wrapped xml tags around the data. I guess HS3 strips those off when it displays the device string. The message was not numeric, so it didn't get converted. It is working now. I am using the latest plugin version.

[Michael McSharry]

But when I added subsequent events, the trigger value kept changing for all events when I changed one of them. I have four events, and if I change the trigger value on one, all four change.

It is not clear to me the terminology being used.

Are the triggers being defined of type that detect a specific MQTT topic received and specific payload value?

Are you getting four event triggers upon receipt of a single MQTT message?

What is a trigger value? The trigger parameters of topic and payload are constant for each event trigger. They do accept wildcards for these parameters.

Is the problem with the event setup itself or in response to a MQTT message that matches the trigger parameters?

In my test scenario I have about half-dozen event triggers setup and don't see anomalies.

[bdickhaus]

The problem is with the event setup itself.

If I change the "mqtt topic" field on one event, it gets changed on all the others. I am only using the topic field, not the payload contains field. It doesn't seem to matter which event I change, all the others are affected. Here are two of the events.

[Steve Q]

In the past couple weeks I have been responding to user input on improving the plugin. When it stabilizes I will update the manual, but the existing one still does provide a general description that can be leveraged.

Somewhere on your network you need to run a MQTT broker and this is normally Mosquitto. In my case I have it on an Odroid (RPi variant), but you can run it on Windows too. I have seen that some have some issues with running it on Windows. Just Google a bit to learn if anything special needs to be done to get it working on W10.

In the xAP world you needed an xAP Hub on each client because of the socket implementation limitations where only one application on a computer can bind to port 3669. In the MQTT case the protocol is TCP point to point rather than UDP broadcast so this port binding limitation does not exist. The MQTT broker, however, serves a similar function where it distributes the traffic to the listening clients. In the basic setup one MQTT broker is needed on a network. On a cloud setup multiple brokers exist with the local broker acting like an Access Point.

[Michael McSharry]

I agree about the Tasmota firmware and MQTT in general. I have been working quite a bit with the plugin based upon user feedback. I suggest waiting a few days until the iteration rate is reduced.

[Michael McSharry]

Bill,
I started a thread at https://forums.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=194857 to discuss triggers. This thread is getting long.

[the-wal]

Can not list mqtt associations

Hello.
I have upgraded to 3.2.2.0 and I can't list associations. the hs log shows
PostBack &id=ShowAssociations&ShowAssociations=Submit Line 0 An item with the same key has already been added.

prior to this version I only has a couple of mcsmqtt devices to I deleted them from hs and uninstalled the plugin and re installed it with the same result.

any ideas?
Thanks

[Michael McSharry]

I see the issue. I will post an update when fixed.

[Michael McSharry]

V3.2.2.2 fixed the postback message and lack of Association table. When there are 100's of rows selected then it could take some seconds to build the table so be patient. With a small setup or limited number being shown based upon filter selections then it should just be a second or two to appear.

[petez69]

Hello.
I have upgraded to 3.2.2.0 and I can't list associations. the hs log shows
PostBack &id=ShowAssociations&ShowAssociations=Submit Line 0 An item with the same key has already been added.

prior to this version I only has a couple of mcsmqtt devices to I deleted them from hs and uninstalled the plugin and re installed it with the same result.

any ideas?
Thanks

Thanks the-wal

Same issue I had, I havent been home to get Michael the debug however it looks like its sorted :-)

You were'nt alone :-)

Pete