The Cynical Indigo Plugins #

We have been happy users of the Indigo home control program for many years. If you want to make your house sit up and pay attention, it’s a great foundation. It natively supports INSTEON and Z-Wave devices (and X10, for you masochists), and has been enhanced over time to work with a variety of devices. Starting with version 5, Indigo supports scripting using the Python language, and the writing of plugin modules in Python, allowing open-ended extension to new types of hardware by defining custom device types, actions, and events. And it allows mere users to use those plugin-defined features without knowing how to do “real” programming.

This I have done with some energy, and in the process learned a lot (about Indigo, and Python, and the Zen of Home Control), and developed some plugins that may well be useful for others, both programmers (as inspiration and stepping stones), and simple home automation users who just want their stuff to work (better).

Getting Plugins #

All my published plugins are available, for free, on the Indigo plugin “store”. Enjoy!

Indigo Versions #

I generally recommend using the latest versions of all my plugins on the latest version of Indigo.

Plugin versions 3.0.0 and later require version 2022.1 (or later) of Indigo. That’s when Indigo switched to using Python 3 (from Python 2) for its plugin implementation. If you must use an earlier version of Indigo (for whatever reason), stick with the latest version of these plugins before version 3. But you really should keep your Indigo version up to date.

Support #

If you run into trouble with these plugins, I will attempt to help you, but do not expect commercial-grade technical support - you get, as always, at most what you pay for. There is, of course, no representation of usefulness or fitness for any purpose, nor any warranty of any kind; any use of these plugins for any purpose whatever is entirely at your risk.

Indigo is supported through a set of message forums. For general questions on home automation and Indigo, find the right forum and post away. To comment on (or complain about) my own plugins only, post in my very own sub-forum there, or send me mail directly. Please note well that I do this as a casual hobby, so there will be delays.

Feature Requests #

Since these plugins are free to use, I have naturally no financial incentive to make them better, or make them do those obviously missing things without which they just happen to be useless to you. Feel free to ask; perhaps I can see your point and get around to adding that special something you need. But don’t hold your breath - I do these plugins primarily for my own house, and what you need may well not be of any interest to me.

If you are handy with Python programming and want to extend one of my plugins yourself, drop me a line and we can talk. Be advised that my plugins are written in a distinct style that you may at first find quite confounding. Knowledge of the Indigo plugin APIs alone is probably not enough, though it’s a good start.

License #

All plugins are released under the Apache 2.0 open source license. This means you have a right to use them without paying for them. You are also allowed to make copies and modify them to your heart’s content, subject to that (very permissive) license. If you have any questions about that, please mail me.