📌 What Is an MQTT Connection?

If your factory has gone the IoT route — wireless sensors, smart gateways, edge boxes, or any modern equipment that publishes data to a broker — you're probably already using MQTT without thinking about it.

MQTT is the lightweight protocol behind most industrial IoT today. A sensor publishes "the temperature is 42.5°C" to a topic on a broker; anything subscribed to that topic receives the update immediately.

An MQTT Connection in Next Plus subscribes to the topics you care about and turns the incoming messages into live values on your Production Entities. Sensors, gateways, and IoT platforms become a native part of your shop-floor workflow.

Heads up: MQTT support is in active rollout. If you don't yet see MQTT Servers in your menu, it's coming shortly — speak to your CS team for timing.

🏭 When Does MQTT Fit?

MQTT is the right choice when:

Your factory already has an IoT or MQTT setup in place — wireless sensors, edge gateways, an AWS IoT or Azure IoT deployment
Equipment is exposed through a gateway — Node-RED, HiveMQ Edge, an OPC UA → MQTT bridge, a PLC IoT module
You want auto-discovery of parameters — Next Plus picks them up the moment messages start arriving, no configuration list to maintain
You need real-time data with lots of similar devices — wildcards let you cover hundreds of sensors with a single subscription

If you don't have an MQTT broker today, you don't need to set up MQTT just to connect to Next Plus — OPC UA (for machines) or SQL (for databases) usually fits better.

🛠 How MQTT Connections Work

In plain terms:

You add the broker — Next Plus connects to your MQTT broker with credentials your IT team provides
You list the topics to listen to — for example, factory/press/+/temperature (one subscription, all presses)
Messages start arriving — every message becomes a value Next Plus tracks. New topics auto-appear as parameters in the broker's library.
You bind parameters to Production Entities — pick the values you want on each PE

Next Plus supports three common message formats — simple values like 42.5, JSON objects like {"temperature": 42.5, "pressure": 3.1}, and OMF / historian-style messages with original timestamps preserved. The format is auto-detected; you don't have to configure it.

🔒 Security

Subscribe-only, always. Next Plus listens to your broker. It never publishes messages back, never sends commands to equipment through MQTT, never sets values.

Standard MQTT security applies:

Username & password — Next Plus connects with a dedicated user your IT team creates on the broker
TLS encryption — turn it on and the connection moves from port 1883 to 8883 with encrypted messages end to end
Topic-level ACLs — we recommend giving the Next Plus user subscribe-only access to the specific topic prefixes you want exposed (for example, factory/#) — never publish rights, never to other topics

🏭 Common Scenarios

📡 Wireless Sensor Network

Before: Wireless temperature sensors logged data to their own dashboard. Operators didn't see anything until someone exported a report.

After: An MQTT connection subscribes to the sensor network's topics. Values appear on the Production Entities for the rooms being monitored. A trigger fires the moment any sensor drifts.

→ Outcome: Continuous compliance monitoring, alerts before problems become incidents.

🔗 OPC UA → MQTT Gateway

Before: The factory had several older PLCs that didn't speak OPC UA, fronted by an IoT gateway publishing to MQTT.

After: Next Plus subscribes to the gateway's topics. The older PLCs become first-class data sources without touching the original equipment.

→ Outcome: Legacy equipment surfaces in Next Plus without invasive changes.

🍃 Node-RED On The Edge

Before: A Node-RED flow on a Raspberry Pi was combining data from several different machines into useful events — but the events were trapped on the edge device.

After: Node-RED publishes the events to MQTT. Next Plus subscribes and surfaces them on the right Production Entities.

→ Outcome: Edge intelligence becomes visible to operators and supervisors.

💡 Real-Life Examples By Industry

🏥 Medical Devices

Use Case 1: Cleanroom Environmental Monitoring

Before: Cleanroom particle, temperature, and humidity sensors logged to a vendor portal that QA reviewed weekly.
Connection: MQTT subscribes to the sensor topics directly into Next Plus.
Benefits:

✅ Continuous environmental record per cleanroom
✅ Automatic alerts on excursions
✅ Audit-ready environmental history

Use Case 2: Equipment Status From IoT Gateway

Before: Older equipment was monitored by an IoT gateway publishing run/stop status to MQTT — but operators never saw it.
Connection: MQTT subscribes to the gateway's topics onto the equipment PEs.
Benefits:

✅ Real-time status visibility
✅ Better downtime tracking
✅ No invasive changes to legacy equipment

🧃 Food & Beverage

Use Case 1: Cold-Chain Sensors

Before: Freezer and chiller temperatures were spot-checked twice a shift.
Connection: MQTT streams sensor readings continuously. Triggers fire on drift.
Benefits:

✅ HACCP-ready continuous monitoring
✅ Early warnings before product is at risk
✅ Full audit trail

Use Case 2: Tank Level Sensors

Before: Storage tank levels required physical inspection.
Connection: Wireless tank-level sensors publish to MQTT.
Benefits:

✅ Live tank visibility across the plant
✅ Better material planning
✅ Fewer stock-out surprises

✈️ Aerospace & Defense

Use Case 1: Torque Tool Telemetry

Before: Wireless torque wrenches kept their data on the tool until docked.
Connection: Tools publish torque events to MQTT in real time.
Benefits:

✅ Per-fastener traceability
✅ Live process verification
✅ No waiting on dock cycles

Use Case 2: Test Cell Edge Computing

Before: An edge box aggregated data from several test instruments but couldn't push it anywhere central.
Connection: The edge box publishes via MQTT; Next Plus subscribes.
Benefits:

✅ Edge intelligence reaches the floor system
✅ Better test-cell utilization
✅ Audit trail across instruments

🧪 Pharma / Cosmetics

Use Case 1: Warehouse Temperature Mapping

Before: Warehouse temperature studies needed manual data loggers downloaded weekly.
Connection: Wireless sensors publish to MQTT continuously.
Benefits:

✅ GxP-aligned environmental records
✅ Excursion alerts in real time
✅ No more manual logger downloads

Use Case 2: Vibration & Asset Health Sensors

Before: Vibration monitoring lived in a maintenance-only system.
Connection: Vibration sensors publish to MQTT, surfaced on production PEs.
Benefits:

✅ Production sees health data live
✅ Early warning of asset issues
✅ Maintenance and production aligned

📱 Electronics Assembly

Use Case 1: ESD Monitoring Network

Before: ESD wrist-strap and floor-mat checks were done manually at shift start.
Connection: Networked ESD monitors publish to MQTT.
Benefits:

✅ Continuous ESD compliance
✅ Per-workstation visibility
✅ Audit-ready ESD log

Use Case 2: SMT Feeder Status

Before: Operators only noticed feeder issues when the line stopped.
Connection: Smart feeders publish status and reel counts to MQTT.
Benefits:

✅ Predictive feeder warnings
✅ Less unplanned downtime
✅ Better changeover planning

🚀 What Setup Looks Like

MQTT setup involves your IT team (who owns the broker), the device or gateway team (who owns the publishers), and your CS team. The flow is:

Step 1 – Make sure you have a broker
Common choices: Mosquitto, HiveMQ, AWS IoT Core, Azure IoT Hub. If you don't have one and your data isn't already on MQTT, MQTT may not be the right protocol — talk to your CS team.
Step 2 – Identify the topics you want
List the topics where the values you care about are published. Wildcards (+, #) help cover many similar devices at once.
Step 3 – Get credentials and ACLs from IT
A dedicated MQTT user with subscribe-only access to the topic prefixes you want exposed.
Step 4 – Add the broker in Next Plus
From Modeling → Production Entity → MQTT Servers, add a new broker with host/port, TLS settings, credentials, and the topic list.
Step 5 – Bind discovered parameters to PEs
As messages start arriving, parameters auto-appear in the broker's library. Open a PE, scroll to Parameters, and tick the values you want.

Want help mapping it out? Contact us via chat and we'll walk through your broker setup and the topics worth subscribing to.

📡 MQTT Connections: Live Data From IoT Sensors and Gateways