Blynk Alternatives

General
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...problem is, that even with a mobile grafana App, you will need to open a path / port to your local site in order to give the app access to your DB. So not a push scenario, which is what the OP wants.

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For those people recommending a public MQTT broker, the same issue of holes in the firewall applies.

If you want to use MQTT - since there are some apps that support it directly - consider setting up a bridge connection from an on-site MQTT broker to a cloud broker. However, you should consider the following:

  • You will need a "hole" through your firewall. Though if only wanting to display data, this might be limited to an outbound-only hole which is relatively safe.
  • You will absolutely want TLS encryption on the connection between the brokers.
  • You should consider limiting the bridge connections allowed topics. Don't blindly allow all topics to be bridged.
  • You might consider implementing a 2nd local broker with Node-RED talking to the primary which is isolated from the outside. Then the primary bridged to the secondary which is the only one allowed with external access. Then the secondary can be configured with TLS and user id/password logins without impacting Node-RED and the primary. This would be by far the safest approach and isn't actually that hard to set up when using something like Mosquitto.

Though in reality, once you set up an external MQTT connection, you might as well just use your own rather than a public broker unless your internet connection is unreliable. Using the primary/secondary broker would then be even more preferred.

You could also get Node-RED to connect to an external broker of course but I don't recommend that since it means that you have to allow greater external connectivity to Node-RED itself. The indirect method is preferred.
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AFAIK not, if the bridge is configured on the local broker...the established connection then is working both ways. I am using it with TLS and cloudmqtt since years now and without the need for a punchhole in my firewall.

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Thanks for the correction, I should have known that :grinning: Indeed, I think I even set it up like that in the dim and distant past!

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That is awesome. If we can find a good MQTT app I think that would work really well. I have been looking but have not found a good one (IOS) yet.

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