IoT Smart Home Dashboard
Real-time appliance control via Raspberry Pi and MQTT
Raspberry Pi + Relays
Hardware Base
MQTT (Mosquitto)
Protocol
True Hardware State Feedback
State Sync
systemd + Mosquitto
Ops model
Project overview
A custom-built Internet of Things (IoT) system designed to remotely control and monitor home appliances. It uses a Raspberry Pi wired to physical relays and sensors, communicating in real-time with a cloud dashboard via the lightweight MQTT protocol. Edge infrastructure runs as Linux systemd services with a Mosquitto MQTT broker.
Initial Thought
Commercial smart home systems are often closed, proprietary ecosystems that lock you into their specific hardware and cloud subscriptions. They offer limited customization and rely heavily on external cloud servers, which means high latency and loss of functionality during internet outages.
Turning Point
I engineered a custom, open-source IoT hub using a Raspberry Pi. By utilizing the MQTT protocol, the system ensures near-instantaneous communication between the physical relays and the user interface. The architecture allows for local control over the local network while still providing remote cloud access if configured.
Architecture
The hardware layer consists of a Raspberry Pi connected to physical relay boards via GPIO pins. A Python daemon (`paho-mqtt`) runs as a systemd service on the Pi, subscribing to control topics and publishing sensor state. A central Mosquitto broker routes messages. The frontend dashboard connects to the broker via WebSockets to provide real-time UI updates.
Outcome
A highly responsive, reliable smart home system built from scratch. It provided real-time control of lights and fans with sub-second latency, proving the viability of custom MQTT-based IoT hubs over proprietary solutions.