Bring The Matrix to your Smart Home with This Clever MQTT Dashboard Screensaver – Hackster.io

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Pseudonymous developer "melancholytron" has released what may be the most, in their own words, nerdy and inefficient MQTT dashboard ever — designed to visualize messages as the digital rain from The Matrix.
"MQTT is basically a simple way for devices to chat with each other," melancholytron explains. "Imagine you have a smart thermostat, lights, and a phone app—they all need to share info, like 'it's too hot' or 'turn the lights off.' Instead of shouting at each other directly, they send little notes to a central hub (called a broker), which passes those notes along to whoever needs them. It's super lightweight, so it doesn't drain battery life, and it works even if a device goes offline for a bit. This program is a way to look at all the data on that hub, but in a super inefficient nerdy way."
Inspired by the 1999 sci-fi classic The Matrix, melancholytron's software is simple: it subscribes to a wildcard MQTT topic, receiving all messages from all devices communicating with the broker. The messages are then printed to the screen, but vertically — and fading from bright to dark, mimicking the "digital rain" effect seen in the film. Color-coded keyword highlighting with optional sound effects allows particular event types to stand out from others — motion detection, for instance.
The Python-based software includes a full-screen mode, for use as a screensaver, the ability to parse JSON payloads, an adjustable scroll speed, and should work on any device with Python 3.8 or higher plus Paho-MQTT and Pygame installed.
The project's source code is available on GitHub; while the documentation suggests a permissive MIT license, the license file is for the reciprocal GNU General Public License 3.
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