MQTT Integration

Connect Konnect to your MQTT brokers to stream real-time IoT data into your workspace. Full support for MQTT 3.1.1/5.0 and Sparkplug B.

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Overview

MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport) is the standard messaging protocol for IoT devices. Konnect connects to any MQTT broker and lets you:

• Subscribe to topics and view live data streams
• Browse Sparkplug B device hierarchies
• Visualise MQTT data on your dashboards
• Query historical MQTT data through Kai

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Adding an MQTT broker connection

Step-by-step:

1. Click MQTT Integration in the sidebar navigation.
2. Click Add Broker.
3. Enter your broker details:
   • Broker URL — e.g., mqtt://192.168.1.100:1883 or mqtts://broker.example.com:8883
   • Client ID — A unique identifier (auto-generated if left blank)
   • Username — Optional, depending on your broker’s authentication
   • Password — Optional
4. Click Connect.

Once connected, Konnect establishes a persistent WebSocket connection and begins receiving messages.

Tip: If you’re using the Docker Compose setup with EMQX, the broker is available at mqtt://mqtt-broker:1883 from within the Docker network.

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Subscribing to topics

Step-by-step:

1. On the MQTT Integration page, locate the Subscribe section.
2. Enter a topic pattern — e.g., factory/line1/temperature or use wildcards:
   • factory/+/temperature — Single-level wildcard (any line)
   • factory/# — Multi-level wildcard (all topics under factory)
3. Click Subscribe.
4. Incoming messages appear in the live message feed below.

Message display

Each message shows:

Field	Description
Topic	The full MQTT topic path
Payload	The message content (JSON is auto-formatted)
QoS	Quality of Service level (0, 1, or 2)
Timestamp	When the message was received

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Sparkplug B support

Konnect has native support for the Sparkplug B specification — the industrial IoT interoperability standard built on top of MQTT.

What is Sparkplug B?

Sparkplug B defines a standard topic namespace and payload format for industrial devices. Instead of raw MQTT topics, you get a structured hierarchy:

spBv1.0 / Group / NBIRTH|NDATA|NDEATH / Edge Node
spBv1.0 / Group / DBIRTH|DDATA|DDEATH / Edge Node / Device

Viewing Sparkplug B data

Step-by-step:

1. Connect to a broker that publishes Sparkplug B data.
2. Konnect automatically detects Sparkplug B messages and presents them in a structured tree view:
   • Groups — Top-level organisational units
   • Edge Nodes — Gateway devices
   • Devices — Individual sensors and controllers
   • Metrics — Data points with names, values, and types
3. Click any metric to view its current value and history.
4. Drag a metric onto the dashboard to create a live chart.

Sparkplug B message types

Type	Description
NBIRTH	Edge Node birth certificate — announces an edge node coming online
NDATA	Edge Node data — periodic data updates from the edge node
NDEATH	Edge Node death certificate — announces an edge node going offline
DBIRTH	Device birth certificate — announces a device coming online
DDATA	Device data — periodic data updates from a device
DDEATH	Device death certificate — announces a device going offline

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Publishing messages

You can publish messages to MQTT topics directly from Konnect.

Step-by-step:

1. On the MQTT Integration page, locate the Publish section.
2. Enter the Topic — e.g., factory/line1/commands.
3. Enter the Payload — JSON or plain text.
4. Select QoS level (0, 1, or 2).
5. Optionally check Retain to retain the message on the broker.
6. Click Publish.

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Using MQTT data in dashboards

Once subscribed to MQTT topics, the data is available in the Data Sources explorer:

1. Expand the MQTT connection in the left panel.
2. Browse subscribed topics.
3. Drag a topic onto the dashboard to create a live-updating chart.
4. Or ask Kai: Show me a live chart of factory/line1/temperature.

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Next steps

• OPC-UA Integration → — Connect OPC-UA servers for industrial automation data.
• Dashboards & Charts → — Visualise MQTT data on custom dashboards.