Home sensor data monitoring with MQTT, InfluxDB and Grafana

Blog post: http://nilhcem.com/iot/home-monitoring-with-mqtt-influxdb-grafana

Projects

• 01-mosquitto: Mosquitto Docker container configuration files
• 02-bridge: Python script that receives MQTT data and persists those to InfluxDB
• 03-bme280_mqtt: Arduino sketch file for the ESP8266 and the BME280 that publishes sensor data to MQTT
• 04-mijia_ble_mqt: Python script that connects to a BTLE MiJia Temperature & Humidity sensor and publishes data to MQTT
• 05-dht22_mqtt: Arduino sketch file for the ESP8266 and the DHT22 that publishes sensor data to MQTT

Setup

Mosquitto + InfluxDB + Grafana

Make sure you have docker and docker-compose installed.
For the example, a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ with Raspbian will be used.

Set the DATA_DIR environment variable to the path where will be stored local data (e.g. in /tmp):

export DATA_DIR=/tmp

Create data directories with write access:

mkdir -p ${DATA_DIR}/mosquitto/data ${DATA_DIR}/mosquitto/log ${DATA_DIR}/influxdb ${DATA_DIR}/grafana
sudo chown -R 1883:1883 ${DATA_DIR}/mosquitto
sudo chown -R 472:472 ${DATA_DIR}/grafana

Run docker compose:

$ docker-compose up -d

Mosquitto username and passwords are mqttuser and mqttpassword. To change these, see the Optional: Update mosquitto credentials section.

Sensors

Sensors should send data to the mosquitto broker to the following topic:
home/{peripheralName}/{temperature|humidity|battery|status}.
For example: home/bme280/temperature.

Arduino sketches for the ESP8266 are provided to communicate with a BME280 (03-bme280_mqtt) and a DHT22 (05-dht22_mqtt).
Before flashing, you need to change the WIFI_SSID, WIFI_PASSWORD, and MQTT_SERVER constants to your WiFi information and MQTT server address.

You can also use a Xiaomi MiJia Temperature & Humidity Sensor.
For more information, see 04-mijia_ble_mqtt/README.md.

Grafana setup

• Access Grafana from http://<host ip>:3000
• Log in with user/password admin/admin
• Go to Configuration > Data Sources
• Add data source (InfluxDB)
  • Name: InfluxDB
  • URL: http://influxdb:8086
  • Database: home_db
  • User: root
  • Password: root
  • Save & Test
• Create a Dashboard
  • Add Graph Panel
  • Edit Panel
  • Data Source: InfluxDB
  • FROM: [default] [temperature] WHERE [location]=[bme280]
  • SELECT: field(value)
  • FORMAT AS: Time series
  • Draw mode: Lines
  • Stacking & Null value: Null value [connected]
  • Left Y
    • Unit: Temperature > Celcius
  • Panel title: Temperature (°C)

Optional: Update mosquitto credentials

To change default MQTT username and password, run the following, replacing [USER] and [PASSWORD]:

$ cd 01-mosquitto
$ echo -n "" > users
$ docker run --rm -v `pwd`/mosquitto.conf:/mosquitto/config/mosquitto.conf -v `pwd`/users:/mosquitto/config/users eclipse-mosquitto:1.5 mosquitto_passwd -b /mosquitto/config/users [USER] [PASSWORD]
$ cd -

Then, update the MQTT_USER and MQTT_PASSWORD constants in all the subdirectories, and launch docker compose again.

Alternative: Using docker manually instead of docker compose

$ cd 01-mosquitto
$ docker run -d -p 1883:1883 -v $PWD/mosquitto.conf:/mosquitto/config/mosquitto.conf -v $PWD/users:/mosquitto/config/users -v $DATA_DIR/mosquitto/data:/mosquitto/data -v $DATA_DIR/mosquitto/log:/mosquitto/log --name mosquitto eclipse-mosquitto:1.5
$ cd -

$ docker run -d -p 8086:8086 -v $DATA_DIR/influxdb:/var/lib/influxdb --name influxdb influxdb:1.7

$ cd 02-bridge
$ docker build -t nilhcem/mqttbridge .
$ docker run -d --name mqttbridge nilhcem/mqttbridge
$ cd -

$ docker run -d -p 3000:3000 -v $DATA_DIR/grafana:/var/lib/grafana --name=grafana grafana/grafana:5.4.3