Telematics devices in trucks, vans and trailers publish GPS position, ignition, fuel or charge level, driver status and reefer temperature to ConnectMQ. Dispatch, your TMS, the workshop and customer ETA notifications all subscribe to the same live data.
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PUBLISH fleet/dallas/truck-084/position
{"ts":"2026-10-22T06:31:44Z","lat":53.5511,"lon":9.9937,"speed_kmh":82,"heading":214,"ign":true,"fuel_pct":63,"driver":"D-1182"}QoS 1 · TLS 8883 · PUBACK
Many fleets rely on a telematics vendor portal that refreshes slowly and keeps the data inside its own system. Getting positions into the TMS, ETAs to customers and fault codes to the workshop means scheduled API exports — and a mixed fleet with several tracker brands ends up in several portals.
Each tracker or in-cab gateway publishes position, speed, ignition, fuel or state of charge and CAN/FMS data to its vehicle topic, adapting the rate to movement to save data.
Devices that cannot publish MQTT directly go through your device gateway, which translates their protocol and publishes into the same topic tree — one format for every brand.
Dispatch maps, the TMS, the maintenance system and the customer ETA service subscribe live to the vehicles and data they need.
Threshold rules alert on overspeed, low fuel or reefer temperature, and dispatch publishes a new job or route to the vehicle’s command topic with QoS 1.
Lightweight packets, keep-alive and persistent sessions, so vehicles reconnect after dead zones and pick up queued jobs.
Last Will and a retained status topic show which vehicles are connected right now and when each one was last seen.
Unique credentials and ACLs per vehicle; a subcontractor’s trucks can be limited to their own topics.
The live dashboard and topic monitor show incoming positions, and threshold rules send notifications without a separate alerting service.
fleet/dallas/truck-084/position
fleet/dallas/truck-084/can
fleet/dallas/truck-084/reefer/temperature
fleet/dallas/truck-084/status (retained)
fleet/dallas/truck-084/jobsYes. MQTT keeps one lightweight connection per vehicle, sends small messages over cellular and handles reconnects with persistent sessions. That makes it a common choice for sending positions and vehicle data from trackers to fleet and logistics applications.
Many trackers and in-cab gateways can be configured to publish MQTT directly. For devices with proprietary protocols, a small device gateway or the vendor’s data forwarding feeds your own service, which publishes to ConnectMQ. Either way, your applications see one topic tree.
MQTT’s fixed header is only two bytes, so almost all the data is the payload itself. Compact JSON or binary payloads, publishing on movement instead of at a fixed rate and a sensible keep-alive keep monthly usage low; the exact amount depends on your reporting interval.
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