setup

Which MQTT broker should I use with my Display Screen?

For most ROAMiQ Display Screen owners the right MQTT broker is the Mosquitto add-on inside Home Assistant. Five-minute setup, no cloud round-trip.

Before you start

  • Home Assistant OS or Supervised (add-ons available)
  • Display Screen reachable on the same local network

The ROAMiQ Display Screen will work with any MQTT v3.1.1 broker — Mosquitto, HiveMQ, EMQX, AWS IoT, whatever — but for most customers, the answer is simple:

Use the Mosquitto broker add-on inside Home Assistant.

Why the Home Assistant add-on

  • No extra hardware. Runs on the same device Home Assistant already runs on.
  • Credentials are already there. Home Assistant users you create double as MQTT users automatically.
  • Zero-config auto-discovery. The Mosquitto add-on and the HA MQTT integration share the broker out of the box.
  • Low latency. Everything stays local — no cloud round-trip.

Setup in under 5 minutes

1

In Home Assistant, go to Settings → Add-ons → Add-on Store.

2

Search for Mosquitto broker, click it, and hit Install.

3

When it finishes, toggle Start on boot and Watchdog on, then click Start.

4

In Settings → People, create a regular user (for example mqtt with a strong password) — this user doubles as your MQTT credential.

5

Point the panel at the broker

On the Display Screen, go to Settings → MQTT and fill in:

  • Broker: your Home Assistant local IP, e.g. 192.168.1.50
  • Port: 1883
  • Username: the user you just created
  • Password: that user's password
  • Use TLS: off (unless you've configured TLS yourself)
6

Tap Save. The availability indicator on the Display Screen flips to online within a couple of seconds.

When to pick something else

  • Multiple Home Assistant instances — a central Mosquitto on a Raspberry Pi that all HAs connect to is cleaner than linking HA setups together.
  • Remote access via Tailscale or similar VPN — keep the Mosquitto add-on. Use the Tailscale IP (e.g. 100.x.y.z) as the broker address on the panel.
  • Enterprise / dealer installs — a self-hosted EMQX or HiveMQ cluster makes more sense for fleet deployments across many vehicles.