MQTT App Development

MQTT support in Altova MobileTogether allows developers to build native, cross-platform IoT automation apps for industrial automation, smart office, and smart home applications.

What is MQTT?

MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport) is a lightweight messaging protocol used for communication by smart devices. MQTT facilitates a decentralized model of communication, allowing devices to publish information to a central broker and subscribe to relevant topics of interest. In this way, MQTT enables monitoring, control, and automation of IoT devices from different manufacturers as well as integration of such devices into a centralized control and monitoring solution. Its lightweight nature makes MQTT ideal for resource-constrained environments, such as IoT devices with limited processing power and bandwidth.

The protocol's design and efficiency make it well-suited for a wide range of applications, from smart home/office automation and industrial IoT to smart city solutions.

MQTT for Industrial Automation

Today, MQTT is a critical component of real-time monitoring and control of devices and processes in a wide variety of industries including automotive, manufacturing, transportation, healthcare, and others.

Automation of industrial smart devices is enabled through MQTT when sensors and actuators can publish and subscribe to relevant topics, facilitating efficient communication throughout the system.

Countless examples exist, but one is the use of robotic arms in auto manufacturing for assembling components such as doors, windows, and interior parts. Sensors on the robotic arms measure displacement and pressure, which can affect the quality of the end product, during the assembly process. Data is published to MQTT topics for real-time monitoring and analysis. Or, you might build an app that monitors equipment temperature in a manufacturing facility: The temperature reading is subscribed to by a PLC that adjusts processes in reaction to the temperature, as well as by the app for real-time data visualization and monitoring.

Smart Home and Smart Office Automation Via MQTT

MQTT technology can also be used in smart home and office systems where IoT devices, such as lights, thermostats, and sensors need to communicate with each other. A simple example is a smart door lock or IoT occupancy sensor publishing a message that an occupant has entered the premises. That message is subscribed to by a mobile app that can then turn on lights, set the temperature, and so on, via MQTT messages to these other smart devices.

Low-Code MQTT Apps

MQTT support in MobileTogether allows apps to join an MQTT network as a publisher, as a subscriber, or as both. An app with subscriber functionality can subscribe to topics published by both MobileTogether publishers and non-MobileTogether publishers.

The unique low-code app development paradigm of MobileTogether implements MQTT support in multiple ways:

An action to subscribe / unsubscribe to an MQTT topic
An action to publish an MQTT message
An MQTT page source in which message data can be stored
A page event that can be triggered when an MQTT message is received for a subscription on that page (an action sequence to follow)
Option to run MQTT actions silently using server services for MQTT actions
Support for uploading previously recorded message files for app simulation using real-world input

Tools for building an MQTT app in MobileTogether

MobileTogether uses a combination of drag-and-drop UI design, the powerful Action Tree visual programming language for event handling, and standardized functional programming for data selection and processing. This unique approach makes it easy to define and test the various aspects of an MQTT-enabled app:

Set up a solution to publish messages, subscribe and unsubscribe to topics, and disconnect from a broker
Specify the solution actions to perform when the solution receives an MQTT message
Set up an MQTT service
Run a simulation to test the Action Tree that is executed when an MQTT message is received

Creating an app for automation using MQTT in MobileTogether

When developing a IoT automation or monitoring app, you can record an MQTT message stream to a file, and then replay it in the MobileTogether app simulator to test and debug during development.

Here's how to get started building an MQTT app in MobileTogether

MobileTogether ships with a sample MQTT solution to help you get started with this functionality. The framework also supports other functionality for enabling industrial automation, including barcode scanning.

The comprehensive and easy-to-implement MQTT support in MobileTogether gives developers the flexibility to implement a wide range of IoT automation apps, from smart home to large-scale industrial automation applications and beyond. Download the FREE MobileTogether Designer to get started.