Keep your broker, add a remote dashboard

Send MQTT sensor data to an online dashboard

SensorConsole runs on web hosting, which serves web requests but cannot run an always-on MQTT broker. That does not stop MQTT sensors from using it. A small script next to your broker subscribes to your topics and forwards the latest values to SensorConsole once a minute. Your devices stay untouched, and you gain remote charts, a permanent history and silent-device alerts.

What you can monitor

• Anything published to an MQTT topic as a number: temperature, humidity, soil moisture, power, air quality and more
• Zigbee2MQTT, Tasmota and ESPHome devices that already publish to your broker

How to connect MQTT online

1. Create a generic push device In SensorConsole, choose Connect a sensor, pick Generic/DIY push, and copy the token.
2. Install the library Run pip install paho-mqtt on the machine that will run the script. Version 2 or newer.
3. Save the script below Set your broker address, the topic pattern and YOUR_TOKEN.
4. Run it After a minute the script prints a line ending in 200 and the readings appear on the device page. Use a systemd service to keep it running after reboots.

import json
import threading
import time
import urllib.request

import paho.mqtt.client as mqtt

BROKER_HOST = "localhost"
BROKER_PORT = 1883
TOPIC = "greenhouse/#"
TOKEN = "YOUR_TOKEN"
PUSH_URL = "https://sensorconsole.com/ingest-generic-push.php?token=" + TOKEN
SEND_EVERY_SECONDS = 60

latest = {}
lock = threading.Lock()


def on_connect(client, userdata, flags, reason_code, properties):
    print("Connected to the broker:", reason_code)
    client.subscribe(TOPIC)


def on_message(client, userdata, msg):
    # greenhouse/temp_c with payload 21.4 becomes {"temp_c": 21.4}
    name = msg.topic.split("/")[-1]
    try:
        value = float(msg.payload.decode())
    except ValueError:
        return
    with lock:
        latest[name] = value


def send_latest():
    with lock:
        data = dict(latest)
        latest.clear()
    if not data:
        return
    request = urllib.request.Request(
        PUSH_URL,
        data=json.dumps(data).encode(),
        headers={"Content-Type": "application/json"},
        method="POST",
    )
    try:
        with urllib.request.urlopen(request, timeout=15) as response:
            print("Sent", data, "->", response.status)
    except Exception as error:
        print("Send failed:", error)


def main():
    client = mqtt.Client(mqtt.CallbackAPIVersion.VERSION2)
    client.on_connect = on_connect
    client.on_message = on_message
    client.connect(BROKER_HOST, BROKER_PORT)
    client.loop_start()
    while True:
        time.sleep(SEND_EVERY_SECONDS)
        send_latest()


if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

YOUR_TOKEN is the device token shown on your device page after you create a generic push device.

Use cases

Questions about MQTT and SensorConsole

Guides

Also works with