How to add custom or MQTT sensores?

[MatiasLM]

Hi,

I'm testing a filter wheel for my AllSky camera, which is commanded by a Python script through INDI Drivers. To centralize the monitoring in the INDI-AllSky web UI, I want to add the filter wheel position as a sensor to show its status in overlays and charts.

My question is: What is the recommended way to add custom sensors like this?

I've tried using the MQTT Broker Sensor without success. Here is what I've done:

• Mosquitto Deployment: Installed using the provided script:
  cd ~/projects/indi-allsky/
./misc/setup_mosquitto_mqtt.sh
• MQTT Configuration: Configured in the Web UI with localhost, port 1883, and the credentials allsky/allskyasc. TLS is disabled. Tests were performed with the MQTT publishing option both enabled and disabled with same results.

• Sensor F Setting

• Testing Publication:I manually published values to the topic:
  mosquitto_pub -h localhost -p 1883 -u "allsky" -P "allskyasc" -t "indi-allsky/efw_position" -m "5.0"
mosquitto_pub -h localhost -p 1883 -u "allsky" -P "allskyasc" -t "indi-allsky/efw_position" -m "2.0"
mosquitto_pub -h localhost -p 1883 -u "allsky" -P "allskyasc" -t "indi-allsky/efw_position" -m "1.0"

• Monitoring the Broker: Using mosquitto_sub, I can confirm the topics are being published correctly on the broker:
  mosquitto_sub -h localhost -p 1883 -u "allsky" -P "allskyasc" -t "#" -v

• Despite the successful publication, the value in the Sensor Panel for "sensor_user_55" remains stuck at 0.0.

• I also checked indi_allsky_status.json directly, and it hasn't updated

Is there a specific topic format or a step I'm missing to make the MQTT Broker Sensor "ingest" these local values?

Thanks!

[aaronwmorris]

I think you have almost everything setup. You set the MQTT server values on the MQTT tab, but that is only for publishing data to MQTT. There are separate MQTT settings at the bottom of the Sensors tab for MQTT sensor subscriptions.

[MatiasLM]

Thank you @aaronwmorris it works!

[johntdyer]

so I have the server configured at the bottom of the sensors panel but I too am not getting values...

you mention here that the topics are fixed but I noticed you didnt correct the original poster above who was using indi-allsky as his base topic which was indi-allsky/efw_position ... so I wrote a small script that pulls some metrics from a premetheus endpoint and want to publish this values into AllSky so it can reference them as well

#!/bin/bash
# bme280_to_mqtt.sh — Fetch BME280 metrics from Prometheus exporter and publish to MQTT

METRICS_URL="http://localhost:9100/metrics"
MQTT_HOST="192.168.120.254"
MQTT_PORT="1883"
MQTT_TOPIC_PREFIX="sensors/bme280"
# MQTT_USER="user"
# MQTT_PASS="password"

# Fetch metrics
METRICS=$(curl -sf "$METRICS_URL") || { echo "ERROR: Failed to fetch metrics from $METRICS_URL"; exit 1; }

# Parse values
HUMIDITY=$(echo "$METRICS"    | awk '/^bme280_humidity_percent / {print $2}')
PRESSURE=$(echo "$METRICS"    | awk '/^bme280_pressure_hpa / {print $2}')
TEMPERATURE=$(echo "$METRICS" | awk '/^bme280_temperature_celsius / {print $2}')

# Bail if any value is empty
for VAR in HUMIDITY PRESSURE TEMPERATURE; do
  [[ -z "${!VAR}" ]] && { echo "ERROR: Could not parse $VAR"; exit 1; }
done

# Build mosquitto_pub args (add -u/-P if auth is needed)
MQTT_ARGS=(-h "$MQTT_HOST" -p "$MQTT_PORT" -r)
# MQTT_ARGS+=(-u "$MQTT_USER" -P "$MQTT_PASS")

mosquitto_pub "${MQTT_ARGS[@]}" -t "${MQTT_TOPIC_PREFIX}/Topic 1" -m "$HUMIDITY"
mosquitto_pub "${MQTT_ARGS[@]}" -t "${MQTT_TOPIC_PREFIX}/Topic 2" -m "$PRESSURE"
mosquitto_pub "${MQTT_ARGS[@]}" -t "${MQTT_TOPIC_PREFIX}/Topic 3" -m "$TEMPERATURE"

echo "Published — humidity: $HUMIDITY% | pressure: ${PRESSURE}hPa | temp: ${TEMPERATURE}°C"

I tried setting the pin to sensor/bme280 and also tried the full topic ``sensor/bme280/temperature_celsius` and neither worked

[johntdyer]

ok, small breakthrough... helps if I have the correct IP 🤦 ....

I've now got values

my sensor panel is configured as follows:

the pin field is sensors/bme280/temperature_celsius,sensors/bme280/pressure_hpa,sensors/bme280/humidity_percent

Is there any way to change their label and tell AllSky that "Topic 1" is temp, "Topic 2" is pressure and and "Topic 3" is humidity?

[aaronwmorris]

You have to edit the source code to update the individual Topic descriptions:

https://github.com/aaronwmorris/indi-allsky/blob/main/indi_allsky/devices/sensors/mqttBrokerSensor.py#L20

[johntdyer]

@aaronwmorris sorry if its not ok to post a follow up question in a discussion thats been marked as "answered"....

[aaronwmorris]

I am not that picky... post away

[johntdyer]

ok, good to know... I posted my confusion / issue above... basically trying to get some mqtt values into allsky and struggling