MQTT Introduction

MQTT (Message Queue Telemetry Transport) is a server-client publish-subscribe messaging transmission protocol. It is open, simple, lightweight, standardized, and easy to implement. These characteristics make it a standard IoT transmission protocol that is ideal for resource-constrained devices. The protocol was released by IBM in 1999. At present, it has been developed to v5.x, and ESP-IDF supports v3.1.1. The two versions have significant differences and are not compatible with each other. Most cloud platforms currently still rely on the older v3.x version. Therefore, in this chapter, we will be focusing on MQTT v3.x.

The MQTT protocol runs over the TCP protocol. It has the following features:

• The publish/subscribe pattern which supports one-to-many message distribution and decoupling of applications.
• A messaging transport that is agnostic to the content of the payload.
• Three qualities of service (QoS) for message delivery.
• Small transport overhead and protocol exchanges minimised to reduce network traffic.
• Will messages to notify interested parties when an abnormal disconnection occurs.