Well things are going really well with the LED Website Indicator project. I re-wrote the firmware, this time using the amazing Autoconnect library (UI for managing MQTT broker and WiFi) and PubSubClient.
The new D1 mini and shield have arrived at the factory – along with a fancy new 3d print cover, so we uploaded the firmware and reached out to friends to test the WordPress plugin – in order to see some flashing lights. No lights. One friend even had his managed WordPress install locked (he wasn’t allowed to install new plugins, some sort of restricted mode – luckily a call to customer support resolved the issue quickly).
After a lot of troubleshooting I finally worked out the issue (on two different servers so far): the admins have locked down outgoing messages and closed most ports – including the one I’m using in the LED-SITE-INDICATOR WordPress plugin, port 1883. Long story short, we can’t have outgoing MQTT messages on all servers (it works on mine though).
So I had to re-write the PHP code as well, removing the MQTT and replacing with http call to an api – which then does the MQTT stuff, on my own server which is allowed.
Conclusion
Check out the LED Website Indicator project – launching any day now!