MQTT: Mosquitto setup?

Configuration
1

Hi Home Assistant folks!

I’m trying to get Tasmota devices going with Home Assistant, but all the docs are wildly out of date (‘click on Supervisor’… “Grab Mosquitto broker from the add-on store” etc. None of the docs about this match what Home Assistant currently looks like, and the MQTT add-on assumes you already have an MQTT broker set up and working. Maybe I’m being dumb but this is feeling a long way from consumer friendly.

This all started because I tried to add a Tasmota device, and of course configuration failed 'cause no MQTT configured, and configuring MQTT failed 'cause no MQTT broker set up, and setting up MQTT broker failed cause… all the many articles either say ‘follow these two quick steps that don’t exist anymore’ or ‘read this long article with the 20 ways you can configure an MQTT server.’

Is the right answer that I need to either run a totally separate MQTT server and then point the MQTT add on to it, or I need to configure and start running docker within the Home Assistant and then install an MQTT server there?

I’m a little surprised there isn’t a more ‘click to install’ solution. Did I miss it?

(This of course all necessitated because the great, easy to set up Tuya install that I based a lot of device buying decisions on was invalidated when my Tuya trial ended, and the devices didn’t come back with any metadata when I extended it.)

2

Settings > AddOns > Addon Store > Search for MQTT > Click on MQTT Broker > Install

This is what I do but more from historical reasons. I was using Node Red long before I discovered Home Assistant and too many of my devices have the MQTT broker IP address hard-coded into them. So, my MQTT broker is on a Raspberry Pi all by itself and my Home Assistant is on an Intel NUC.

Over the past few months I have been moving my Tasmota devices to ESPHome, so I only have two left to migrate. What device are you setting up and is there an ESPHome configuration for it?

3

Can I suggest a walk-though of all MQTT settings including details of HASS discovery?:

If this helps, :heart: this post!