Using MQTT and HiveMQ to Build the Connected Car

The automotive industry, like most industries, is undergoing a digital transformation. All automotive OEM and tier 1 are trying to understand how to use data from the car to create new market opportunities and improve the customer experience.

When I first started to work at HiveMQ, I had the opportunity to speak with some of HiveMQ’s automotive customers. What I found interesting was that many of these customers tried to build a connected car service using traditional web technologies, HTTP and SMS, and did not succeed. Building a connected car architecture based on a request/response just didn’t work, especially if you wanted to have bi-directional communication between the car and cloud. Establishing an HTTP request/response sequence just took too long to provide a fast and consistent user experience. SMS was often used to initiate a session connection but SMS was just too unreliable. For instance, some automotive companies were reporting it would take up to 30 seconds to unlock a car door from a mobile app using SMS and HTTP. Not a great solution.

Luckily, it seems forward-thinking automotive companies have discovered MQTT’s publish/subscribe protocol. They realize MQTT’s ability to keep an open session and persistent connection was key to connecting with millions of vehicles and enabling bi-directional communication.

HiveMQ has been collaborating with companies like BMW, Audi, SiriusXM, on building their connected car platform using MQTT and HiveMQ. Based on these experiences, we have written a technical white paper to describe the key challenges of building connected car services and how MQTT and HiveMQ can solve these challenges. We believe HiveMQ makes an excellent solution for building a fast, reliable and scalable connected car platform. I hope this becomes a useful resource for other companies interested in building connected car services. Enjoy.