MQTT Flex

There are cases where you want to use MQTT Anywhere but are unable to for some reason. Perhaps your device needs to operate in a country that does not allow permanent roaming of cellular devices, or there are local authority regulations in place which dictate a certain MNO must be used for projects like metering. You might also need to use NBIoT but not yet be able to connect using the MQTT Anywhere SIM while roaming agreements mature or simply already have a solid relationship with an MNO that you wish to maintain.

For all these cases there is now MQTT Flex. In this first release, MQTT Flex utilises the DTLS support within the native MQTT-SN client on the u-blox LARA-R6, SARA-R5 and SARA-R422 modules. We also have versions of the IoT Communication-as-a-Service client SDK available to bring MQTT Flex to any modem which can be requested by contacting support@thingstream.io. In Q4 2022 we will leverage the secure root of trust provided by IoT Security-as-a-Service which will remove the need for DTLS on supported modems, and give you MQTT Flex with a power budget to match the ultra-low power MQTT Anywhere.

To add individual Flex Things to your Thingstream domain, just go to the Things list, select "Add Thing" and follow the simple wizard for a new Flex Thing and then read our guide for configuring MQTT Flex with LARA-R6, SARA-R5 and SARA-R422. If you want to handle mass provisioning, check out our zero touch provisioning (ZTP) feature.