BPL supports MQTT reporting(publish) and remote control(subscribe).

MQTT reporting is independent from HTTP reporting/logging. You can enable both at the same time. However, it is not recommended because of resource consumption.

Broker/Server Settings

The commmon seection of Reporting and Remote Control. Please note that BPL doesn’t support SSL.

Reporting format

The data can be sent in two ways, “Individual Topic” and “Whole as JSON”. When “Individual Topic” is selected, in most cases, every data item has its own topic, appended after “Base Path”. For example, the topic of beerTemp will be “/base/beerTemp”, given the “Base Path” is “/base”.

Ubidots.com accepts JSON format as MQTT data publish, which is the case that “Whole as JSON” should be used.

The topic terminals or the JSON labels are listed in the following table.

Label	Meaning	Note
beerTemp	Beer Temperature reading
beerSet	Beer set temperature
fridgeTemp	Fridge Temperature reading
fridgeSet	Fridge set Temperature
roomTemp	Room temperature
gravity	Gravity in SG(eg. 1.052)
plato	Plato
auxTemp	Temperature reading from iSpindel
voltage	Voltage of iSpindel
tilt	Tilt value of iSpindel
pressure	Pressure reading in PSI
mode	current running mode	Integer values for “Whole as JSON”, character values for “Individual Topic”
state	State in Integer. 0:IDLE, 1:STATE_OFF,2: DOOR_OPEN, 3:HEATING, 4: COOLING, 5: WAITING_TO_COOL, 6:WAITING_TO_HEAT, 7:WAITING_FOR_PEAK_DETECT, 8:COOLING_MIN_TIME, 9:HEATING_MIN_TIME
fridgeHumidity	Fridge/Chamber Humidity reading, if available
roomHumidity	Room/environment Humidity reading, if available

MQTT Remote Control

MQTT Remote Control enables controlling BPL by a MQTT server. When enabled, BPL subscribes the specified path and changes the setting accordingly. Currently, five items can be controlled in this way.

Mode

The values can be 0,1,2,3 or o,f,b,p for ‘Off’, ‘Fridge Constant’, ‘Beer Constant’, and ‘Beer Profile’. If the mode is changed to ‘Beer Profile’, the current profile will be used and the profile starting time will be set to current time. That is, you should edit the profile beforehand, and expect the profile to be execute starting from the time it is set.

beerSet

Beer setting temperature. It is used it the mode is set to “Beer Constant”.

fridgeSet

Fridge setting temperature. It is used it the mode is set to “Fridge Constant”.

Capping/spunding, if enabled.

PTC temperature, if enabled

To set PTC target temperature, the ‘triggering temperature’ will set to 3 degree higher.

Initial values and Echo effect

While mode, fridgeSet, and beerSet are reporting items, they are also “subscribed” topics if enabled. They can have exact the same topics as reporting topics, or not. If the “Remote Control” topics are different from “Reporting” topics, the initial values are not clear, or undefined. For example, if “/basepath/setmode” is the remote control path and “/basepath/mode” is reporting path. The initial value of “/basepath/setmode” is undefined. It won’t affect normal operation, but some people don’t like it. If the remote control topic path is set to exact the same as reporting topic, echo effect happens when changing the values, depending on the implementation of MQTT Brokers. It is demostrated as following table.

BPL	MQTT Broker	User
BPL publishes mode, say, OFF.
	MQTT Broker publishes mode to value OFF
BPL gets notification that mode is changed to OFF.
		The user sets mode to “beerConst”.
	Broker notifiy value changes
BPL updates mode to beerConst.
BPL reports mode as beerConst
	Broker notifiy value changes
BPL gets notification that mode is changed to beerConst.

Some Notes

Connecting to MQTT server takes up a TCP connection and some resource. The program might stick to the setting on MQTT server. Therefore, enable it only when you need it.

There is latency of network and update of data. Therefore, expect some delay after changing the setting.

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