State of #VSCP

I planned to release version 15.0.0 of VSCP today. But as usual plans are one thing and reality is another. I still need some more time. But very soon now...

This has been a very hard release to get out. Mainly because the big rewrite of code. The rewrite has taken nearly two years to accomplish so there are many, many, MANY changes.

The biggest change is that MQTT is used for higher level functionality now. This means that the drivers (both level I and level II) talk to a MQTT broker in the following fashione

It is actually possible to have as many subscribe/publish topics as one need. Like this

So from a higher level view you now subscribe or publish VSCP events on a MQTT broker of choice. Events that can be on four different formats; binary, JSON, XML or ASCII.

The default format is JSON. Ans a VSCP JSON event looks like this

{
    "vscpHead": 2,
    "vscpObId": 123,
    "vscpDateTime": "2017-01-13T10:16:02",
    "vscpTimeStamp":50817,
    "vscpClass": 10,
    "vscpType": 8,
    "vscpGuid": "00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:01:00:02",
    "vscpData": [1,2,3,4,5,6,7],
    "note": "This is some text"
}

For measurement events some optional fields can be added

measurement {
    "value" : 1.23,
    "unit" : 0,
    "sensorindex" : 1,
    "zone" : 11,
    "subzone" : 22
}

If you have worked with the VSCP websocket protocol ws2 you recognize this format.

The tcp/ip interface, the web socket interfaces, the decision matrix, the webserver, remote variables are gone from the VSCP daemon with this release. From tghis point the VSCP daemon will do one thing. Have a common interface to drivers and handle the transfer of events between the drivers and MQTT brokers. One can look at it as a pluggable driver interface for MQTT brokers.

Well, a lot of functionality has been written during the year using the VSCP web interface, websocket, tcp/ip etc. But that work does not need to be thrown away. This functionality is now available as drivers to the VSCP daemon. Initially the tcp/ip server and client, the web interface, websockets (ws1/ws2) and the rest interface is in place. Later the decision matrix functionality and remote variables will be added again as well.

Another news is that the VSCP daemon natively now builds on Windows again. Many have asked for that. Most driver will be available there as well.

There are more of course. But more on that latter. If I sit here and just write about the release it will never come out.

Last I want to thank my sponsors. It has been a tremendous help during this long development time to get this sponsorship. It’s been that little drop of water that made the boat go float each month. Thank You!

ps What about VSCP works someone may ask? The rewrite works continue isd trhe answer. A lot to rewrite there as well. ds.