I’m trying to send a mqtt message to a device via the Shortcuts app’s “Call Service” action from the Home Assistant companion app.
Here’s a screenshot of my mini workflow:
The value of the payload key is again dictionary like this: { "name": "pvCurrPower" }.
So what I try to do here is to set the current app on one of my Ulanzi clocks running the Awtrix firmware.
I’m listening/watching the topic in MQTT Explorer but the message never arrives.
Anyone any idea what I’m doing wrong here? 
I even tried without using the Dictionary action but a simple Text action instead where I entered the JSON. I tried with escaping and without escaping quote (and other) characters – to no avail. 
UPDATE:
I found a – strange – solution!
When I create the payload for the mqtt.publish service like in the screenshot, it works:
Very strange that in the payload dictionary the payload key’s value has to be of type “text” – when it actually is a dictionary! Very weird!!
