mqtt-cli VS Thingsboard

It is correct, the client needs to be sending the PINGRESP if no other control packets are being sent. Perhaps the question here is not the broker but the client. I would suggest testing with a client which is fully conformant with MQTT 3, 3.1.1 and 5.0 specificaation, such as https://github.com/hivemq/mqtt-cli

BTW MQTT is not much harder than HTTP (if at all), there are even CLIs that you can run to test things out.

Until recently I was still using TB v3.2.1, now I've set about updating the installation to the latest version. I proceeded as described at https://github.com/thingsboard/thingsboard/tree/master/docker:

You might find something more attuned to that use case to be more helpful out of the box (like thingsboard.io) but if you're committed to django, set up an API endpoint to receive json updates ('events') sent from the arduino.

Introduction：As a 100% open source IoT platform that can be hosted as a SaaS or PaaS solution, Thingsboard can provide device management, data collection, processing and visualization for your IoT project. The standard protocols that provide device connectivity such as MQTT, CoAP, and HTTP are all available on ThingsBoard. In addition, it supports cloud and local deployment and provides more than 30 customizable components that allow you to build end-user custom dashboards for most IoT cases. GitHub: https://github.com/thingsboardThingsboard: http://thingsboard.io/ Features:

Then host a ThingsBoard server and use the HTTP API to push data from the device. You can send alerts with Pushover.

**Source** [thingsboard (a foreign iot platform)](https://thingsboard.io/)

ThingsBoard is an open-source IoT platform for data collection, processing, visualization and device management. It supports device connectivity via protocols, such as MQTT, CoAP and HTTP, and supports both cloud and private deployments. Deliver, monitor and control your IoT entities in a secure way using rich server-side APIs that define the relationships between your devices, assets, customers, or any other entities. Collect and store telemetry data in a scalable and fault-tolerant manner, visualize your data with built-in or custom widgets and flexible dashboards, and share the Dashboard interface with your customers.

The company I work for uses https://thingsboard.io and the team from Ukraine that built it are awesome and the company is still responding even though they are going through this hell of a war.