MQTT & Real-time

Without MQTT, Kiosk Admin polls devices every 30 seconds. With MQTT, device status updates appear instantly — and commands can be routed to devices on different networks without port forwarding.

Three modes

Mode	When to use
Embedded broker	Self-contained setup; no external service needed
External broker	You already run Mosquitto, HiveMQ, or similar
No MQTT	HTTP polling only (30-second interval)

Embedded broker

The simplest option. Kiosk Admin starts an Aedes MQTT broker inside the same process on port 1883.

1. Go to Settings → MQTT
2. Click Embedded Broker
3. Set a port (default 1883)
4. Optionally set a username and password
5. Click Save & Connect

The status badge shows “Running on port 1883 — N clients connected” and updates every 5 seconds.

Configure your devices to connect to:

Protocol	URL
MQTT TCP	mqtt://{server-ip}:1883
MQTT WebSocket	ws://{server-ip}:9883 (if WS port is set)

External broker

1. Run an MQTT broker (e.g. Mosquitto via Docker):

   docker run -d -p 1883:1883 eclipse-mosquitto

2. Go to Settings → MQTT → External Broker

3. Enter the broker URL — all standard schemes are supported:

   Scheme	Example	Notes
   mqtt://	mqtt://192.168.1.10:1883	Plain TCP
   mqtts://	mqtts://broker.example.com:8883	TLS (e.g. HiveMQ Cloud)
   ws://	ws://192.168.1.10:9001	WebSocket
   wss://	wss://xxx.hivemq.cloud:8884/mqtt	WebSocket over TLS

4. Set optional credentials and topic prefix (default: fully)

5. Click Save & Connect

Topic structure

Fully Kiosk Browser

Direction	Topic
Device → broker (status)	{prefix}/deviceInfo/{deviceId}
Device → broker (events)	{prefix}/event/{event}/{deviceId}

Fully Kiosk MQTT is publish-only — it sends status updates but does not subscribe to commands. Commands are always sent via the local REST API.

FreeKiosk

Direction	Topic
Device → broker (status)	{baseTopic}/{deviceId}/state
Device → broker (availability)	{baseTopic}/{deviceId}/availability
Broker → device (commands)	{baseTopic}/{deviceId}/set/{entity}

FreeKiosk supports bidirectional MQTT. Kiosk Admin learns the base topic from the first incoming state message and routes subsequent commands through MQTT automatically.

Cross-network devices

Both embedded and external brokers work for cross-network devices: the device connects outbound to the broker, so no inbound ports need to be open on the device’s network.

For FreeKiosk devices: once an MQTT Device ID is set and the broker is connected, commands are automatically routed through MQTT regardless of whether the device is on the local network or not.

MQTT device discovery

When a device publishes MQTT messages but is not yet registered in Kiosk Admin, a “Discovered via MQTT” banner appears above the device grid. Click Add to open the Add Device form pre-filled with:

• Device name (from MQTT payload)
• IP address (from MQTT payload)
• MQTT Device ID

Tip

MQTT device IDs are also automatically fetched when you save a new device — Kiosk Admin probes the device’s REST API during registration.