MQTT – Finally!

After a few months of off and on again trying to get my data parse, collect and displayed the way I wanted it. I finally found a little tid bit of info that pointed me in the right direction.

rtl_433 -F “mqtt://192.168.1.15:1883,retain=0,devices=Pipedream/TempSensors/[protocol]/[id]” -M utc

As you can see I am using rtl_433 to receive data from various sensors around the buildings. It gets sent to our MQTT Broker for redistribution to computers that have subscribed to selected topics. Since we have a few sensors of the same model we use [protocol] to group those sensor together, but each sensor has its own feed.

Funny thing is we are now finding sensors, we didn’t know about. We will be watching the data being collected and see if we can figure it out.

Below are the sensors we need to figure out (what they are) 211 and 17. All the rest (so far) we can already id and parse the data correctly.

Low cost Ham Radio’s

Baofeng UV-5R for less than $25

Having been a Ham for awhile, I lost track of my radio. Finally dug it up and of course it was dead. Out of date and no updates, so worthless. Heard about Baofeng handhelds, and they were programable. Found a couple for less than $22 each, in different colors. I tried to program one using “CHIRP” and a low cost cable, never got it to work. Ordered another, hopefully better cable and will try again.

It all looks good. Low cost. Small and fairly easy to use. Programming however is another story.

Hopefully new cable resolves my issues.

UPDATE: Yes using a BoaFeng Labled cable worked the first time every time. So I do not recommend buying or trying to use a knock off. My two cents!