Tonight I've had a bit of time to have a look at how to reinforce my network communication between the various units that could be used to make up an Aquariumatic install.

After hearing a lot about MQTT (and subsequently watching a lot of related videos) I decided that integrating the protocol would improve my communication between not only the devices but the user.

I have installed an MQTT Broker (like a server) onto a Pi and it runs great. I'll be able to run this on the Pi Powered hub in my setup. The original plan was to go figure the Pi as an Access Point and have all the devices connect to it; this is great, as all the devices will have access to the broker.

I've also had an MQTT client running on an ESP8266, successfully publishing data to a test channel. I've installed a client on my android phone and it was possible to subscribe to the test channel and see the data updating.

While early days I'm really excited at the prospect of rewriting my hub and controller scripts and exploring what MQTT can bring to my setup.

I'm going to need to write a python MQTT client to take the published data from the channel/channels on the Pi and use it to populate a Web GUI with useable data for the user.

Also I'd like to publish data in a JSON string to a channel but I'm not sure if that's possible - I'll keep working on it. Id also like to publish data in a more user-friendly manor to a second channel.

Also very soon I am going to be liaising with a company with a great pedigree in taking ideas and making in them into professional products, with a view to creating the product versions of my prototyping setups.

I'm really hoping that u can keep this momentum up and bring this to life very very soon!