Particle.publish()
Publish an event through the Particle Cloud that will be forwarded to all registered callbacks, subscribed streams of Server-Sent Events, and other devices listening via Particle.subscribe().This feature allows the device to generate an event based on a condition. For example, you could connect a motion sensor to the device and have the device generate an event whenever motion is detected.
Particle.subscribe()
Subscribe to events published by devices.This allows devices to talk to each other very easily. For example, one device could publish events when a motion sensor is triggered and another could subscribe to these events and respond by sounding an alarm.
To use Particle.subscribe(), define a handler function and register it in setup().
References:
https://docs.particle.io/reference/firmware/photon/#cloud-functions