Choose between the OVMS Server v2 REST API and the OVMS Server v3 MQTT protocol when building an integration that retrieves telemetry from an Open Vehicle Monitoring System module
domain: docs.openvehicles.com · 5 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
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Steps
Determine which server version your OVMS module and target server are running, since v2 and v3 use fundamentally different integration protocols
For a v2 server, authenticate using the cookie-based session flow or by requesting an API token, then call the REST endpoints to retrieve vehicle and status data
For a v3 server, connect as an MQTT client to the server's broker and subscribe to the relevant vehicle topics to receive telemetry rather than polling a REST endpoint
If you need to send commands to a v3-connected vehicle, publish to the command topic for that client and vehicle and listen on the corresponding response topic
Design your data pipeline around the protocol you actually connect with, since a v2-style polling REST client will not work against a v3 MQTT-only deployment
Known gotchas
Server v3's built-in REST API does not implement command execution the way v2 does, so command-sending integrations against v3 need to go through MQTT rather than REST
v2 REST sessions expire quickly when idle, so a long-running integration needs to handle re-authentication rather than assuming a session token stays valid indefinitely
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