MQTT / CoAP message broker

Technical Documentation

To get started using ThingMQ, users connect their devices to mq.thingmq.com using the M2M protocol of their choice. It is important to note that since it is a shared instance, all information your device publishes will be visible to other users. Once the user is connected, they choose a unique identifier for their device, for example my-thing-id. Data can be published under my-thing-id via MQTT, CoAP, REST or WebSockets protocols using JSON, plain-text, XML, BSON, MsgPack or any other payload format. Consuming data published by the user device can be done using any of the supported protocols, all messages are bridged across protocols.

REST

The REST API is available at mq.thingmq.com on port 80 while the REST over SSL API listens on port 443. Messages can be published using a POST or PUT request sent to http://mq.thingmq.com/things/my-thing-id. An example using curl follows:

$ curl -X PUT -d '{ “temperature”: 22.5, “humidity”: 31 }' \
				  -H "Content-Type: application/json" http://mq.thingmq.com/things/my-thing-id

Messages can be consumed by sending a GET request to http://mq.thingmq.com/things/my-thing-id:

$ curl http://mq.thingmq.com/things/my-thing-id
				  { “temperature”: 22.5, “humidity”: 31 }

MQTT

The MQTT 3.1.1 compliant broker is available at mq.thingmq.com on the default port 1883 while the MQTT over SSL broker listens on port 8883. Messages can be published under the mqtt://mq.thingmq.com/things/my-thing-id topic. An example using mosquitto_pub follows:

$ mosquitto_pub -h mq.thingmq.com -d -t “my-thing-id” -m “{ ‘temperature’: 22.5, ‘humidity’: 31 }"

To listen to the messages sent by your device, subscribe to the mqtt://mq.thingmq.com/things/my-thing-id topic:

$ mosquitto_sub -h mq.thingmq.com -d -t “my-thing-id”
				  my-thing-id { ‘temperature’: 22.5, ‘humidity’: 31 }

Sub-topics are also supported:

$ mosquitto_pub -h mq.thingmq.com -d -t “my-thing-id/temperature” -m “22.5”
				  $ mosquitto_pub -h mq.thingmq.com -d -t “my-thing-id/humidity” -m “31”

MQTT wildcard operators # and + are fully supported:

$ mosquitto_sub -h mq.thingmq.com -d -t “my-thing-id/+”
				  my-thing-id/temperature 22.5
				  my-thing-id/humidity 31

CoAP

The CoAP broker implements the IETF RFC 7252 Constrained Application Protocol standard as well as the observe and blockwise draft specifications. The ThingMQ CoAP server is available at mq.thingmq.com on the default port 5683. Messages can be published under the coap://mq.thingmq.com/things/my-thing-id resource. An example using coap-cli follows:

$ echo -n “my-thing-id” -m “{ ‘temperature’: 22.5, ‘humidity’: 31 }" | coap post coap://mq.thingmq.com/things/my-thing-id

To consume messages, send a GET request to coap://mq.thingmq.com/things/my-thing-id:

$ coap get coap://mq.thingmq.com/things/my-thing-id
				  201 { ‘temperature’: 22.5, ‘humidity’: 31 }

And to observe a resource:

$ coap -o coap://mq.thingmq.com/things/my-thing-id
				  201 { ‘temperature’: 22.5, ‘humidity’: 31 }

WebSockets

The WebSockets interface is available at mq.thingmq.com on port 80 while the WebSockets over SSL interface listens on port 443. Messages can be published using a POST or PUT request sent to http://mq.thingmq.com/things/my-thing-id. An example using JavaScript and socket.io follows:

// Connect to ThingMQ using WebSockets
				  var socket = io.connect("http://mq.thingmq.com");
				  
				  socket.on("connect", function(data) {
					  socket.emit('subscribe', topic);
				  });
				  
				  // Listen on topic "my-thing-id" and write messages to console.
				  socket.on("/things/my-thing-id", function(data) {
					  console.log('Received : ' + data );
				  });