Connect with Home Assistant

In recent years, as people's demand for home security, convenience, comfort and artistry has increased, home automation has become more and more popular. Home Assistant, a popular open-source home automation platform, provides a secure and convenient central control system. In this article, we will introduce you how to use EMQX Platform MQTT Broker to connect with Home Assistant.

Prerequisites

Get MQTT Broker

You can use the free public MQTT broker provided by EMQX. This service was created based on the EMQX Platform. The information about broker access is as follows:

• Broker: broker.emqx.io
• MQTT Port: 1883
• WebSocket Port: 8083
• MQTT over TLS/SSL Port: 8883
• WebSocket over TLS/SSL Port: 8084

You can create a deployment as well. Find connection information in deployment overview. Make sure the deployment is running. Use the TCP port or TLS/SSL port to test the connection to the MQTT server.

If you are creating your own deployment, check Authentication and set the username and password in Access Control > Authentication for verification.

Home Assistant Initialization

If you are using MQTT for Home Assistant for the first time, please refer to the quick start.

1. Install Home Assistant

   In this example, we use Docker to quickly install Home Assistant.

   docker run -d --name="home-assistant" -v /opt/homeassistant/config:/config -p 8123:8123 homeassistant/home-assistant

   Then access the Home Assistant service via the local IP with the corresponding port, e.g., x.x.x.x:8123, to create an account.

   

2. Enable advanced mode (optional)

   Advanced broker options are accessible only when advanced mode is enabled, such as MQTT features, Websocket, and TLS/SSL verification.

   

3. Add Integration

   Go to Home Assistant's settings, choose Devices & Services.

   

   Click + Add Integration and fill in MQTT.

   

   Then you could enter the Connection information for the broker.

Connect over TCP Port

This section describes how to connect a homeassistant client to MQTT broker over TCP port.

1. MQTT connection

   • Fill in the broker address, port, username and password (if it exists).
   • Select TCP for MQTT transport.

   

2. WebSocket connection

   • Fill in the broker address, port, username, and password (if they exist).
   • Select WebSocket for MQTT transport and fill in the WebSocket path as /mqtt.

   

Connect over TLS/SSL Port

This section describes how to connect a homeassistant client to MQTT broker over TLS/SSL port.

1. MQTT over TLS/SSL connection

   • Fill in the broker address, port, username, and password (if they exist).
   • Select Auto for broker certificate verification.
   • Select TCP for MQTT transport.

   

2. WebSocket over TLS/SSL connection

   • Fill in the broker address, port, username, and password (if they exist).
   • Select Auto for broker certificate verification.
   • Select WebSocket for MQTT transport and fill in the WebSocket path as /mqtt.

   

Test Connection

After filling in the connection information, click the Submit button. Your EMQX Platform deployment is now integrating with Home Assistant. Congratulations!

Click Configure to complete the publish or subscribe topic.