WebSocket for live updates in Raspberry Pi - Mini Project: Build & Apply

WebSocket for live updates

📖 Scenario: You want to create a simple program on your Raspberry Pi that connects to a WebSocket server to receive live updates, like messages or sensor data.

🎯 Goal: Build a Python program that connects to a WebSocket server, listens for live messages, and prints them as they arrive.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a WebSocket client connection to a given URL

Set up a variable for the WebSocket server URL

Write a loop to receive messages from the WebSocket

Print each received message to the console

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

WebSocket connections are used to get live updates from servers, like chat messages, sensor data, or notifications.

💼 Career

Understanding WebSocket clients helps in building real-time applications and IoT projects on devices like Raspberry Pi.

1

Set up the WebSocket URL

Create a variable called ws_url and set it to the string "wss://echo.websocket.events".

Raspberry Pi

# Your code here

Need a hint?

This URL is a public WebSocket echo server you can use for testing.

2

Import the WebSocket client library

Import the websocket module by writing import websocket at the top of your code.

Raspberry Pi

import websocket

# Your code here

Need a hint?

You need this module to create a WebSocket client connection.

3

Connect and receive messages

Create a WebSocket connection using websocket.create_connection(ws_url) and assign it to ws. Then write a while True loop that receives messages using ws.recv() and stores each message in message.

Raspberry Pi

import websocket

ws_url = "wss://echo.websocket.events"

# Your code here

Need a hint?

The recv() method waits for a new message from the server.

4

Print the received messages

Inside the while True loop, write print(message) to display each received message.

Raspberry Pi

import websocket

ws_url = "wss://echo.websocket.events"

ws = websocket.create_connection(ws_url)
while True:
    message = ws.recv()
    # Your code here

Need a hint?

Try sending a message to the server to see it echoed back and printed.