Over the past few weeks, Andy Stanford-Clark and I, have been setting up a new server dedicated to supporting MQTT access for CheerLights. I am happy to announce that the MQTT server is live at mqtt.cheerlights.com:1883 and available for devices and apps to connect to. The main subscription topic is “cheerlights”. If you want to get the HTML RGB code for each color, subscribe to “cheerlightsRGB”.

Why MQTT?

MQTT allows for real-time subscription to the CheerLights feed. When someone changes the color, the color gets published immediately over the “cheerlights” topic. MQTT also allows for your devices to stay connected versus polling the API for changes.

I choose to use Eclipse Mosquitto™, an open source MQTT broker, as the basis of the MQTT server.

Fun Fact

Andy Stanford-Clark and Arlen Nipper invented the MQTT standard in 1999! They had to create a new protocol for connecting oil pipelines over unreliable networks.