MQTT support
Gathering Feedback
There was already a question some time ago about this topic here: Mqtt supported?
I'd like to raise awareness again and hope that others will vote for this "feature request" too.
With MQTT, integration into existing home automation systems would be even easier. The protocol is supported by most professional and open source home automation systems.
Subscribing to topics, like for example the zone status, would make it unnecessary to poll the status via the REST API.
Please give it a thought!
-
Hi Nicholas,
it's good to hear that you guys are somewhat working on it in the background.
I agree, porting the whole API might be a too big step and doesn't even make sense. I'll have a look at the current API and check what I would figure might be useful.
Some ideas (just see them as a whishlist/user stories from end user point of view)
- In general, publishing all relevant sensor data would be nice. I.e. current flow at the flow meter, cumulative flow.
- Several "virtual" main valves (per zone) with configurable lead/follow-up time that can be used to a) actually trigger an external valve, pump power supply, etc., b) can be used as a warning that watering will soon start, i.e. to give a automatic lawn mower time to stop and dock.
- I'd really like to have the opportunit to set a temporary snooze for my programs in a way that they are resumed after removing the snooze.My use case is: I want to have RM in control over my watering cycles. During summer I want to irrigate as early as possible in the morning. But I also want to use solar power for it. Therefore I'd like to snooze all programms via an external logic engine, until my PV array produced enough power to run the well pump. After "releasing" the snooze I'd like the RM to continue with all programs in the originally programmed order.
Another use case would be to block watering while the veranda door is open (and the kids are possibly playing on the lawn).- topics to publish current weather data to the RM, i.e. every hour, coming from a locally installed weather station.
Just a few ideas.
-
As for the "Why?" - MQTT is becoming the defacto standard for Internet-of-Things ("IoT") device communication. It is supported by a wide variety of home automation tools, such as Home Assistant, OpenHab, and even venerable MisterHouse. My home automation system integrates with my lights, A/V systems (TV, amp, blu-ray player, etc.), and alarm system. Pretty much everything EXCEPT the sprinklers. Adding MQTT to the RainMachine software would allow it to integrate with the rest of my ecosystem.
No, I wouldn't want or expect a full rewrite of the API. I would envision that when an event occurs in the RainMachine (e.g. new weather update, zone turns on/off, etc.) that it "publish" (i.e. send) an MQTT message of the event. And that it would listen to MQTT for a set of messages (of your design) that it would respond to. MQTT was designed to be very low overhead, and as such is used by such small devices as individual in-wall light switches. It shouldn't be a lot of strain on RainMachine resources.
As for features I'd like to see: In addition to general sensor and weather information as already discussed, I'd like to be able to use MQTT to enable/disable programs and start/stop programs or zones. This would allow me to change the watering cycle based on, say, ground moisture sensors, that RainMachine knows nothing about. Or defer watering a particular zone at 4AM when I have guests over for the weekend, because the sprinkler is noisy and right outside their window.
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
9 comments