MQTT is a useful meeting point for tools that should exchange small state updates without sharing one application. dump1090-to-mqtt reads compatible aircraft JSON and publishes observations to a broker, opening a path to existing MQTT consumers and Home Assistant.
Publish state with a lifecycle
Retained messages let a subscriber receive the latest published state when it connects. Aircraft eventually leave the receiver's view, so stale retained state needs attention too. A linger interval and cleanup behavior prevent disappeared aircraft from remaining indefinitely as if they were still being observed.
Make availability visible
Availability and last-will behavior help consumers distinguish an absent publisher from a quiet feed. Reconnection backoff handles interruptions without a constant tight retry loop. Those details are especially useful in an unattended service, where an old value can otherwise look deceptively current.
Use discovery where it helps
Home Assistant discovery covers altitude, speed, heading, and squawk sensors. Consider how many aircraft your station observes and which entities are actually useful before enabling broad discovery. The repository documents broker configuration, publishing behavior, and discovery options. These remain receiver observations, not a substitute for an authoritative flight-status source.
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