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nRF Cloud MQTT topics

The MQTT API uses topics to send or receive data. Topics that begin with $aws are AWS reserved topics. All other topics are custom-defined by nRF Cloud.

In the following sections, ${mqttTopicPrefix} is the value of the mqttTopicPrefix JSON field in the response to the FetchAccountInfo endpoint.

Permissions to access these topics are managed by IoT security policies. See Device security for more information.

Topics used by devices running the nRF Cloud library

Devices running the nRF Cloud library, whether through Asset Tracker or a custom application, use the topics in this section.

Shadow topics

The nRF Cloud library supports the following MQTT topics for retrieving and managing the device state through the shadow. See also the AWS documentation regarding MQTT topics reserved for shadows.

Topic Publish Subscribe Purpose
${deviceId}/shadow/get/accepted ✔ Receive a trimmed shadow that contains only essential shadow data, in response to a get request.
${deviceId}/shadow/update/delta ✔ Receive the trimmed shadow changes made in response to an update request. Only changes of essential shadow data is provided.
$aws/things/${deviceId}/shadow/get/rejected ✔ Receive information about a rejected shadow request.
$aws/things/${deviceId}/shadow/update/delta ✔ Receive all shadow changes made in response to an update request.
$aws/things/${deviceId}/shadow/get ✔ Request the device's shadow.
$aws/things/${deviceId}/shadow/update ✔ Update the device shadow.

After connecting and getting the shadow contents, the device looks for {"pairing":{"state":"paired"}}. If instead it finds {"state":"not_associated"}, the device waits for association. If found, the device derives and stores the c2d and d2c topics.

Message topics

Preface each of these topics with mqttTopicPrefix. nRF Cloud supports messages sent to any topic prefixed with ${mqttTopicPrefix}/m.

Schemas

The following table explains the message topic schemas used by nRF Cloud and devices.

Schema Description
c2d Cloud-to-device
d2c Device-to-cloud
c2g Cloud-to-gateway
g2c Gateway-to-cloud

The nRF Cloud portal, nRF Cloud library, and Asset Tracker application all use /d2c, /d2c/bulk and /c2d. If you want the nRF Cloud portal to work with and properly display these messages, send the data formatted according to /d2c schemas.

Topics

The following table shows supported message topics.

Topic Publish Subscribe Purpose
m/d/${deviceId}/c2d/r ✔ Receive messages from nRF Cloud not related to Location Services.
Deprecated m/d/${deviceId}/c2d ✔ This topic is deprecated. See /c2d/r. Receive messages from nRF Cloud.
m/d/${deviceId}/d2c ✔ Publish messages to nRF Cloud.
m/d/${deviceId}/d2c/bin ✔ Publish binary logs to nRF Cloud.
m/d/${deviceId}/d2c/bulk ✔ Publish a batch of messages to nRF Cloud as an array, which republishes each message in the array to the /d2c topic as if each message were published individually. Messages sent to /d2c/bulk are not stored. Useful for ultra-low power (ULP) scenarios. This is currently the only supported bulk processing topic.
gateways/${gatewayId}/c2g ✔ Receive messages from nRF Cloud. Applies to LTE gateways only.
gateways/${gatewayId}/g2c ✔ Publish messages to nRF Cloud. Applies to LTE gateways only.

Location Services topics

The following tables show topics related to Location Services.

Preface each of these topics with mqttTopicPrefix.

Subscribe topics (C2D) for Location Services

A device can subscribe to the following topics to receive location data from nRF Cloud.

Topic Purpose
/m/d/${deviceId}/agnss/r Receive A-GNSS data from nRF Cloud.
Deprecated /m/d/${​​​​​​deviceId}​​​​​​/agps/r This topic is deprecated. See /agnss/r. Receive A-GNSS data from nRF Cloud.
/m/d/${​​​​​​deviceId}​​​​​​/pgps/r Receive P-GNSS data from nRF Cloud.
/m/d/${​​​​​​deviceId}​​​​​​/wifi/r Receive Wi-Fi data from nRF Cloud.
/m/d/${​​​​​​deviceId}​​​​​​/cell_pos/r Receive cell data from nRF Cloud.
/m/d/${​​​​​​deviceId}​​​​​​/ground_fix/r Receive ground fix data from nRF Cloud.

Publish topics (D2C) for Location Services

A device can use the following topics to send location data to nRF Cloud. These are the same topics used for other messages, and include location data according to the app ID in the payload.

Topic Purpose Example
m/d/${deviceId}/d2c or m/d/${deviceId}/d2c/bulk Send the following types of location data to nRF Cloud, based on the app ID in the payload:
  • A-GNSS
  • P-GNSS
  • Wi-Fi
  • Cell
  • Ground fix

FOTA topics

These topics relate to the firmware over-the-air (FOTA) update service, which sends an update job that the target device can execute to update its firmware.

Preface each of these topics with mqttTopicPrefix.

Topic Publish Subscribe Purpose
${deviceId}/jobs/rcv ✔ Receive a FOTA job execution for an IP-based device.
${deviceId}/jobs/ble/rcv ✔ Receive a FOTA job execution for a Bluetooth® Low Energy (LE) device. Applies to LTE gateways only.
${deviceId}/jobs/req ✔ Request the current pending job execution for an IP-based device.
${gatewayId}/jobs/ble/req ✔ Request the current pending job execution for a Bluetooth LE device. Applies to LTE gateways only.
${deviceId}/jobs/update ✔ Update the status of a job execution for an IP-based device.
${gatewayId}/jobs/ble/update ✔ Update the status of a job execution for a Bluetooth LE device. Applies to LTE gateways only.

Additional topics supported by nRF Cloud

The following topics are not directly supported by the nRF Cloud library.

Preface each of these topics with mqttTopicPrefix.

You can use account devices to subscribe to any of the above topics and any of the topics below. You can substitute the MQTT wildcard + character for device IDs to subscribe to events from all devices in the team. You can also use the MQTT wildcard # character at the end of a topic to subscribe to any topic at that level or below, such as +/jobs/#.

Any provisioned and associated device can access the following topics, but the device's firmware must subscribe or publish to the full topic name directly, since they are not supported by the nRF Cloud library.

Topic Publish Subscribe Purpose
m/# ✔ ✔ Send and receive custom device messages, and have them automatically stored in the cloud for later retrieval. The nRF Cloud library uses only the m/d/${deviceId}/# topics shown in the tables above. nRF Cloud processes and stores any device messages sent over topics that start with the m topic fragment, for example, m/sensor/temperature/room2.
a/connections ✔ Receive connection events from your devices, informing you when they connected and disconnected.

The following republished shadow topics are only accessible by account devices, not any other devices. The topics allow account devices to subscribe to shadow updates for any device on the same team as the account device. An account device that subscribes to shadow topics will only receive shadow changes for the account device, not for any other devices.

Topic Publish Subscribe Republished From Purpose
${deviceId}/shadow/get/accepted ✔ $aws/things/${deviceId}/shadow/get/accepted Receive the entire shadow, in response to a get request.
${deviceId}/shadow/update/delta ✔ $aws/things/${deviceId}/shadow/update/delta Receive all shadow changes made in response to an update request.