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Fleet Telematics

MQTT for Fleet Telematics

Vehicles, trackers and cold-chain sensors report position and condition over mobile networks. MQTT’s small packets and persistent sessions suit links that come and go.

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What you can build

Build your fleet platform on ConnectMQ

You build the applications, ConnectMQ moves the data. Vehicles publish once over MQTT; the dispatch dashboard, TMS integration, alerting and analytics you build each subscribe to the topics they need — add a new one without touching a single truck.

Your vehicles
GPS trackerfleet/{id}/gps
CAN / OBD-II telematicsfleet/{id}/engine
Reefer sensorfleet/{id}/reefer/temperature
Driver appfleet/{id}/pod
ConnectMQ
  • TLS on 8883
  • per-device ACL
  • persistent sessions
  • Last Will
What you build on top
Dispatch dashboard
TMS / WMS / ERP
Alerts & customer ETAs
Route optimisation
What you get

Fleet Telematics on ConnectMQ

  • Lightweight messages for cellular connections
  • Persistent sessions so vehicles pick up queued commands after reconnecting
  • Keep-alive and Last Will to detect lost connectivity
  • Per-vehicle credentials and topic permissions
example topic design
fleet/truck-084/gps
fleet/truck-084/reefer/temperature
fleet/truck-084/commands
Cellular data per vehicle / month
MQTT over TLS78 MB
one connection, tiny frames
HTTPS polling (keep-alive)233 MB
headers on every request
HTTPS, new connection per fix1.4 GB
TLS handshake every time

Estimate per vehicle and month: one 60-byte GPS fix every 10 seconds over TLS, including TCP/IP and TLS overhead. For 500 vehicles that is about 39 GB with MQTT versus 117 GB with HTTPS polling.

Data plans

Up to 3× less cellular data than HTTP polling

One long-lived MQTT connection and two-byte headers instead of a full HTTP request for every position. Across a fleet, that is the difference between a small IoT data plan and a large one.

Real-life example

A reefer door left open — fixed before the load warms up

A common logistics setup with MQTT: the telematics unit in a refrigerated truck publishes over 4G, the dispatch system subscribes, and messages to the driver’s cab display travel back the same way.

ConnectMQMQTT broker · TLS 8883Rule: reefer above 8 °CTRK-0844.1 °C8.6 °C ▲4.2 °CDispatch officeTMS · subscribed4.1 °C6.3 °C8.6 °C6.0 °C4.2 °Cdoor openClose the reefer doorReefer truck TRK-084Telematics unit · 4Gfleet/trk-084/reefer {"temp":8.6,"door":"open"}fleet/trk-084/reefer {"temp":8.6,"door":"open"}fleet/trk-084/commands {"msg":"close door"}fleet/trk-084/commands {"msg":"close door"}fleet/trk-084/reefer {"door":"closed"}Dispatch · nowTRK-084 reefer back to 4.2 °CConnectMQMQTT broker · TLS 8883Rule: reefer above 8 °CTRK-0844.1 °C8.6 °C ▲4.2 °CDispatch officeTMS · subscribed4.1 °C6.3 °C8.6 °C6.0 °C4.2 °Cdoor openClose the reefer doorReefer truck TRK-084Telematics unit · 4Gfleet/trk-084/reefer {"temp":8.6,"door":"open"}fleet/trk-084/reefer {"temp":8.6,"door":"open"}fleet/trk-084/commands {"msg":"close door"}fleet/trk-084/commands {"msg":"close door"}fleet/trk-084/reefer {"door":"closed"}Dispatch · nowTRK-084 reefer back to 4.2 °C

  1. 10:42 Telematics unit in TRK-084

    Publishes the reefer temperature and door state every 30 seconds over 4G. At a delivery stop the door stays open.

    fleet/trk-084/reefer → {"temp":8.6,"door":"open"}

  2. 10:42 Dispatch system

    Subscribed to fleet/+/reefer through ConnectMQ: its rule fires above 8 °C and sends a message to the driver’s cab display.

    fleet/trk-084/commands → {"display":"Close the reefer door"}

  3. 10:43 Driver in the cab

    Reads the message and closes the door; the unit reports the new state.

    fleet/trk-084/reefer → {"temp":7.1,"door":"closed"}

  4. 10:55 Dispatcher

    Gets the all-clear when the trailer is back at 4.2 °C — the load is safe.

In a tunnel or a dead zone, the command waits in the truck’s persistent session on ConnectMQ and is delivered with QoS 1 the moment the truck reconnects (QoS 1 · persistent session).

ESP32 code sample Node.js code sample

Platform

Features that help with Fleet Telematics

Dashboard & monitoring

Live topic cards, signals and ISA-95 workspace

Learn more

Rules & alerts

Threshold rules, alert log and notifications

Learn more

Connectivity

MQTT 3.1.1 and 5 over TCP, TLS, WS and WSS

Learn more
Solutions

Other ways teams use ConnectMQ

Industrial IoT & Smart Manufacturing

Machines, PLC gateways, OEE and quality data

Smart Home

Hubs, sensors and Home Assistant setups

Smart Energy

Meters, EV chargers, solar and batteries

Connected Products & Smart Hardware

Smart devices you ship to your own customers

Connected Robots & Physical AI

Robot fleets talking to fleet managers and AI pipelines

Data Center Monitoring

Power, cooling and rack environment

Smart City

Streetlights, parking, air and waste sensors

Smart Agriculture

Soil probes, weather stations and irrigation

Prototyping & Education

From first ESP32 to classroom labs

Industries & use cases

Where teams use Fleet Telematics

Industries

Use cases

Pilot

Put your first trucks on MQTT this week

Start on the Free plan with no card. Basic covers up to 100 concurrent connections — enough to pilot a route with real vehicles. Move to Scale when the whole fleet goes live.

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