How To Set Up MQTT With Raspberry Pi Pico W | Guide For Beginners

In this guide, we'll get a *Raspberry Pi Pico W* to send and receive data to the cloud using the *MQTT* protocol. By the end of this video, we'll be controlling real hardware over the cloud using a web-based dashboard ( *Adafruit IO* ).

If you need help setting up *WiFi* on the *Pico W* head here:

If you're new to *Raspberry Pi Pico* and *Thonny* give this a read:

🔧🔨🧰 Hardware featured in this guide:

*Raspberry Pi Pico W:*
*PiicoDev Ultrasonic Rangefinder:*
*PiicoDev 3x RGB LED Module:*
*Other Pico Products:*

0:00 Intro
0:39 Setting Up Adafruit IO
1:47 Publishing To The Dashboard With Your Pico W
3:53 Code Walkthrough
4:24 Subscribing To Data With Your Pico W
6:08 Reconnecting After Losing Power
7:05 Code Walkthrough
8:09 Controlling Hardware Via The Cloud

🌏🦘 *Core Electronics* is located in the heart of Newcastle, Australia. We're powered by makers, for makers. Drop by if you are looking for:

The following trademarks are owned by *Core Electronics Pty Ltd* :

"Core Electronics" and the Core Electronics logo
"Makerverse" and the Makerverse logo
"PiicoDev" and the PiicoDev logo
"GlowBit" and the GlowBit logo

[Meine_Rede]

Nice video. Great learning in less than ten minutes. Wonderful !

[ariel_monaco]

Used MQTT a lot a decade ago. Its big limitation is that is has no authentication nor encryption (regardless of the hardware and energy requirements, it could have been built as an optional feature just like what HTTPS is to standalone HTTP). MQTT was originally created to monitor gas and petrol pipeline sensors, so its deployment and application environment was always inside a closed intranet or some kind of network back then. Anyways awesome video as it shows the vast application capabilities of the Pi Pico W. Such an awesome device!

[ronsflightsimlab]

Glad I came across this!

Thanks from San Diego, CA.

[pulsarhunter]

Thank you for the video! I'm not the best programmer, so this was very helpful. I manged to adapt your code to publish bme280 sensor readings on the adafruitIO dashboard. It works great! cheers, Harro.

[jyvben]

Even a raspberry pi 3/4 can run a mqtt server, no cloud needed if you only want local access (not outside the home).

[bgavin]

Nice tutorial. I had error trying to install umqtt simple. I found out I need to have Thonny version 4.0.2. I was running Thonny version 4.0.1

[chrisl]

6:25 If we think of the dashboard as part display, part control panel, we might prefer it if at power-on the device state changed to match the state of the toggle (rather than switching the toggle off). Is that possible - can a subscriber get the *current* state, rather than having to wait for a state change?

[tomlynn]

I use MQTT to share telephone handset on/off-hook status with homeassistant.

[Gerald-izmv]

Hi nice video! Would also love to see LTE communication with raspberry pi zero 2 w. Also long term study would be interesting. How much data you transmit and how much power it consumes…

[jacekkomendoowicz]

what could be the problem
Failed to publish message: [Errno 104] ECONNRESET

[calibre_au]

Nice video, it's not clear however how the switch on the adafruit dashboard can communicate from the web back into an internal network. I assume the mqtt publisher on the LAN keeps a NAT session open for incoming traffic.

[marcovanurk]

Great video. I’m interested in the scripts for the rangefinder and the LEDs at the end of the video. Do you have a link to the source codes? Thx. 🙏🏻

[truthhurts]

Great Video, but I want to monitor my Garage Door Status while away from home, so I need to SUBSCRIBE through an iPhone.
I got you code to work, then replaced the slide button with a MOMENTARY one, and put in a 1.5 second to allow a relay to function (to close door if open).

Do you have knowledge of the MQTT Apps and what I have to do to get this to function on a phone? Apps are available, but don't have good explanations of connection to Adafruit's site.

THanks

[zoro.]

How to publish the in built temp sensor data to node red via mqqt?

[bentjensen]

Just started with MQTT. I got your example working, but was surprised to see, that an IP address is not being set up after establishing the wifi connection. Why is that not needed?

[vish]

A slightly advanced question - I've an application on the pico w that is publishing data at 50HZ. Now when I try the same thing with a regular python script on an actual RPi 3B, it works splendidly, but when I try running the same script on the pico, I have some lost packets. I was wondering if the issue was because of the way the umqtt works, or if it was an issue with how the clock is configured. I did not touch the clk, so I did not mess that up afaik. Does anyone know what could be happening? Can the pico with its default clk config publish at 50 Hz? (once every 20ms)

[WintonMc]

Does this need updating? I got an error install umqtt simple:-

[jaenaax]

I added the umqtt folder with the simple.py into my project in vscode. But I get a lot of errors. Does anyone know why? Do I have to install anything else?

[phoenixxflashamv]

Can I send 300samples/sec using this? Please answer 🥺

[WiselyGaming]

sir i have a doubt pls clear: i want to connect a 16x2 Lcd display to raspberry pi pico on windows, pls Tell me how can i do.