Connect to IoT Central app directly MQTT without SDK

Question

I would like to connect my devices to my IoT Central application directly using MQTT protocol without using any SDK. I found some official instructions on how to connect a device to IoT Hub directly with MQTT here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/iot-hub/iot-hub-mqtt-support but I can't find anything similar for IoT Central.

I want to strictly avoid the usage of any language SDK and want to get this done directly using MQTT protocol. For testing purposes I'm using a general purpose MQTT toolbox called MQTTBox. I want to connect that tool to a device registered using a Device Capability Model on IoT Central and send test measurements with it. Can someone provide some instructions?

Answer 1

Hi,

The MQTT device can be connected directly to the IoT Central App based on its device connection string which is necessary to generate in advance.

This link shows an example how to generate a necessary data for device connectivity to the IoT Central App, such as generating a hostname of the internal IoT Hub and the device sasToken.

The following screen snippet shows an example of the MQTT device11 connectivity using the MQTTBox client, where:

Host = iotc-954aeb54-6bdd-435e-8f71-49d8c712c89a.azure-devices.net:8883
Username = iotc-954aeb54-6bdd-435e-8f71-49d8c712c89a.azure-devices.net/device11/?api-version=2020-09-30&model-id=dtmi:rk2021iotcfree:abba1mg;2
Password = <sasToken>

The next screen snippet shows a connected device11 to the IoT Central App and its published telemetry data:

Another example of the connectivity MQTT device to the IoT Central App using a direct protocol is the Azure IoT Hub Tester:

and finally, the following screen snippet shows a device11 dashboard on the IoT Central App:

Thanks
Roman