Bring The Matrix to Your Smart Home with This Clever MQTT Dashboard Screensaver

Pseudonymous developer "melancholytron" has released what may be the most, in their own words, nerdy and inefficient MQTT dashboard ever — designed to visualize messages as the digital rain from The Matrix.

"MQTT is basically a simple way for devices to chat with each other," melancholytron explains. "Imagine you have a smart thermostat, lights, and a phone app—they all need to share info, like 'it's too hot' or 'turn the lights off.' Instead of shouting at each other directly, they send little notes to a central hub (called a broker), which passes those notes along to whoever needs them. It's super lightweight, so it doesn't drain battery life, and it works even if a device goes offline for a bit. This program is a way to look at all the data on that hub, but in a super inefficient nerdy way."

Inspired by the 1999 sci-fi classic The Matrix, melancholytron's software is simple: it subscribes to a wildcard MQTT topic, receiving all messages from all devices communicating with the broker. The messages are then printed to the screen, but vertically — and fading from bright to dark, mimicking the "digital rain" effect seen in the film. Color-coded keyword highlighting with optional sound effects allows particular event types to stand out from others — motion detection, for instance.

The Python-based software includes a full-screen mode, for use as a screensaver, the ability to parse JSON payloads, an adjustable scroll speed, and should work on any device with Python 3.8 or higher plus Paho-MQTT and Pygame installed.

The project's source code is available on GitHub; while the documentation suggests a permissive MIT license, the license file is for the reciprocal GNU General Public License 3.