Skip to content
BranchesTags

Repository files navigation

Device Activity Monitor — Indigo Plugin

Version: 1.10.1 Author: CliveS Platform: Indigo 2022.1 or later / macOS / Python 3.10+

Developed and tested on Indigo 2025.2 / Python 3.13. Older Indigo releases that meet the minimum API version above should also work — the API floor is what Indigo's plugin loader actually checks. Plugin ID: com.clives.indigoplugin.deviceactivitymonitor GitHub: https://github.com/Highsteads/DeviceActivityMonitor

v1.9.0 renamed this plugin from Sensor Monitor → Device Activity Monitor. Same lineage — the new name better describes both halves of what it now does: per-device change logging and group-change custom triggers.

What's new in 1.10.x

1.10.1 (21-Jul-2026) is housekeeping — a refresh of the shared utility module, with no change to how the plugin behaves. Calling the log timestamp filter twice no longer double-stamps every line, a log call with a mismatched placeholder now shows its arguments instead of dropping them, and the module imports cleanly outside Indigo so the offline tests can reach it.

The 1.9.11 → 1.10.0 releases are the result of a full deep review of the plugin. The headline fixes: editing a group's members now takes effect immediately (it used to silently wait for a plugin restart), group triggers no longer double-fire on Zigbee2MQTT duplicate publishes or radio housekeeping updates, one typo in a hand-edited config can no longer stop the plugin loading, and re-running discovery now preserves your variables, custom labels and manually added entries instead of quietly resetting them. New in 1.10.0: a Test Fire All Group Triggers menu item so you can check your trigger actions without walking round the house waving at sensors, a Configure dialog for the runtime toggles, discovery that applies its results immediately, and warnings when a group still references a deleted device. The test suite has grown from 104 to 143 checks along the way.

Table of contents

What it does

Device Activity Monitor watches Indigo devices and variables and reacts to their state changes two complementary ways:

  1. Logs changes to the Indigo event log with millisecond-precision timestamps and custom on/off labels (Front Door OPEN, Lux Level: 450 -> 520).
  2. Fires custom triggers when any device in a named Group changes state, with an optional direction filter (any change / becomes ON/OPEN / becomes OFF/CLOSED).

The two halves are independent and can each be turned on or off at runtime from the Plugins → Device Activity Monitor menu — use just the change-logger, just the group triggers, or both. The [HH:MM:SS.mmm] timestamp prefix on the logger's output is also its own toggle, so you can keep the logging on but rely on Indigo's column timestamp alone if the inline prefix is noise for you. All three toggles persist across plugin restarts. See Plugin menu below.

Groups are first-class Indigo devices managed via a rich two-list Add/Remove ConfigUI — no JSON editing required. The plugin replaces both:

  • A pile of one-trigger-per-device "Device State Changed" triggers
  • The older Group Change Listener plugin (Morris's) — this plugin is based on Group Change Listener and updated to a dual-list Add/Remove ConfigUI

…with one subscription, one config file for logging, and one Indigo Group device per trigger group.

Installation

  1. Download Device_Activity_Monitor.indigoPlugin.zip from the latest release
  2. Unzip and double-click Device_Activity_Monitor.indigoPlugin — Indigo will prompt to install
  3. Plugins → Manage Plugins → enable Device Activity Monitor
  4. The plugin auto-creates its config folder at <install>/Preferences/Plugins/com.clives.indigoplugin.deviceactivitymonitor/
  5. Open the Indigo Event Log — you should see a one-line startup summary with the loaded device count (the full diagnostic banner is available on demand via Plugins → Device Activity Monitor → Show Plugin Info)

Credentials — IndigoSecrets.py vs IndigoSecrets_example.py

This plugin, like every CliveS Indigo plugin, reads sensitive values from one shared master file:

/Library/Application Support/Perceptive Automation/IndigoSecrets.py

File Purpose Real data? Committed to GitHub?
IndigoSecrets.py Working file the plugin reads at runtime. Keep a backup in a password manager. YES NO — listed in .gitignore
IndigoSecrets_example.py Template only — empty placeholders. Shipped in the plugin bundle. NO YES

If you don't have IndigoSecrets.py, copy IndigoSecrets_example.py out of the plugin bundle into /Library/Application Support/Perceptive Automation/, rename it to IndigoSecrets.py, and fill in your values. Or skip the file altogether and type the values into the plugin's configuration dialog — where both are set, IndigoSecrets.py wins.

If neither source supplies a value the plugin needs, it logs an ERROR naming the key and telling you to either fill in the matching field or add the key to IndigoSecrets.py.

Note for this plugin specifically: Device Activity Monitor reads no external APIs and needs no credentials in normal use. The IndigoSecrets_example.py file is shipped for ecosystem consistency only — there is nothing to fill in unless you extend the plugin yourself.

Quick start in 5 minutes

Goal: get a Pushover notification when any of three motion sensors in the living room detects movement.

  1. Create the group device

    • Devices → New Device
    • Type = "Device Activity Monitor → Device Activity Monitor Group"
    • Name it "Living Room Presence"
    • Show devices from: pick Living Room (or (All folders))
    • In Available devices: ⌘-click your 3 motion sensors
    • Click Add to Group ↓
    • Save

  2. Create the trigger

    • New Trigger → Type = "Device Activity Monitor: Group Changed"
    • Group: pick "Living Room Presence (3 members)"
    • Fire on: "Any device becomes ON / OPEN / detected"
    • Actions tab: add your Pushover action

  3. Done. Wave at any of the three sensors — Pushover fires. The trigger does NOT re-fire while the sensor stays active, and does NOT fire on the off transition (because of the direction filter).

That's the headline workflow. The rest of this README covers the variants.

Use cases

1. Activity logging — passive observer

You want a single log line every time a sensor changes state, so the event log becomes a usable timeline. No triggers, no actions — just clean logging.

  1. Plugins → Device Activity Monitor → Discover All Devices
  2. Open device_activity_monitor_config.json and uncomment / add the lines you want logged
  3. Plugins → Device Activity Monitor → Reload Config File

Each configured state gets a log line of the form:

[14:23:01.452] Front Door Contact OPEN
[14:25:33.104] Hall PIR Occupancy ON

2. Single-device direction trigger

Indigo has a built-in "Device State Changed" trigger for this, but if you'd rather pick by a friendly name from a list of Group devices:

  1. Create a group with one member (the device)
  2. Trigger → Fire on = "Any device becomes ON / OPEN / detected" (or the OFF variant)

Useful when you want a consistent "group" mental model across single and multi-device cases.

3. Multi-sensor "any change" trigger

Fire whenever any member of the group changes any state. Equivalent to Morris's Group Change Listener with no filter.

  • Group: any number of devices
  • Trigger → Fire on = "Any change (default)"

Use this for log-spam-style "something happened in this area" reactions where direction doesn't matter.

4. Multi-sensor "becomes occupied" trigger

Fire once when the first member transitions from off to on. Doesn't re-fire while any other member is also active.

  • Group: 3 presence sensors in a room
  • Trigger → Fire on = "Any device becomes ON / OPEN / detected"

Common uses:

  • Turn on the lights when anyone enters a multi-sensor room
  • Pushover "movement in the garage" without 3 separate triggers
  • Start a "room occupied" timer

5. Multi-sensor "becomes empty" trigger

Fire only on the off transition.

  • Group: same room sensors
  • Trigger → Fire on = "Any device becomes OFF / CLOSED / clear"

Common uses:

  • Start a delay timer to turn lights off when the last sensor clears
  • Trigger an "armed away" routine when a contact closes

Pairing: use one group with two triggers — one direction-filtered to "becomes ON" and one to "becomes OFF". Each fires only on the relevant edge.

6. Save which device fired

If multiple devices in a group could be the source, capture the firing device's name to an Indigo variable so your actions can use it:

  1. Trigger ConfigUI → tick Save firing device
  2. Pick a variable
  3. Save value: "Device Name" or "Device ID"
  4. In your action, reference the variable with %%v:NN%% or read it in a Python action script

Examples:

  • Pushover body: "Movement detected by %%v:firing_sensor%%"
  • Script: branch based on which front-of-house contact was triggered

7. Combining with conditions and scripts

The trigger doesn't have to fire blindly. Indigo's standard Conditions and Actions tabs are fully available:

  • Conditions tab: "only fire between sunset and sunrise" / "only when the alarm is armed" / "only when nobody is home"
  • Actions tab: chain to action groups, Python scripts, action collections, send-to-variables, control pages, etc.

For complex multi-room logic, fire one trigger from each group and have the target action group read all the various states it cares about.

8. Variable monitoring

Add Indigo variables to the variables[] section of device_activity_monitor_config.json:

"variables": [
  {"id": 241032502, "name": "Lux_Level", "label": "Lux Level"}
]

Output:

[14:26:10.512] Lux Level: 450 -> 520

Multi-Sensor Trigger — deep dive

The headline feature. This section walks through every option in detail.

Step 1: create the Group device

Devices → New Device → Type = "Device Activity Monitor → Device Activity Monitor Group".

You get a dialog with these fields:

Field What it does
Show devices from Folder filter for the Available list. (All folders) shows everything; (Root) shows un-foldered devices; named folders narrow to that folder's contents
Available devices Multi-select list of devices NOT yet in this group. Cmd-click to select multiple, then click Add. Refreshes as the folder filter changes
Add to Group ↓ Moves the Available-list selection into the Members list
Current group members Multi-select list of devices currently in the group. Devices the bridge has since deleted show as <missing device id NN> so you can clean them up
↑ Remove from Group Moves the Members-list selection back to "available"

To edit a group later, double-click the Group device — same dialog, same flow. There is no JSON editing.

To delete a group, right-click → Delete (standard Indigo flow). Any triggers wired to the deleted group will log a warning on next plugin reload that they reference a now-missing group.

Each Group device shows N members as its display state in the Indigo device list.

Step 2: create the Trigger

New Trigger → Type = "Device Activity Monitor: Group Changed".

Field What it does
Group Dropdown of all Group devices, each labelled with its name and live member count. This is Indigo's native device picker filtered to self.damGroup — folder tree, search, the lot
Fire on Direction filter (see next section)
Save firing device Tick to capture which member triggered the event into an Indigo variable
Save to variable (only when Save firing device is ticked) target variable
Save value (only when Save firing device is ticked) "Device Name" or "Device ID"

Step 3: pick the direction filter

The Fire on menu has three options. They look at the device's onState attribute before and after the change.

Option Fires when…
Any change (default) Any meaningful state on a group member changes. Housekeeping states (lastSeen, link quality, battery, RSSI) are ignored as of v1.9.12, so duplicate radio publishes and signal-strength churn no longer fire it
Any device becomes ON / OPEN / detected A member's onState flips from False to True. Edge-triggered: doesn't re-fire while it stays on. Use for occupancy, door-opens, alarms
Any device becomes OFF / CLOSED / clear A member's onState flips from True to False. Edge-triggered: doesn't re-fire while it stays off. Use for "last sensor cleared" timers, door closes

The directional options only fire on onState transitions, so they ignore chatty value updates (temperature, illuminance, etc.) entirely.

Step 4: chain to actions

Standard Indigo Actions tab. The trigger fires the same way as any built-in Indigo trigger — Pushover, action groups, scripts, control pages all work identically.

If you ticked Save firing device, your variable now contains the name or ID of the device that triggered the firing — reference it via %%v:NN%% in text fields, or read it directly in Python script actions.

Diagnostic states on the Group device

Whenever a trigger fires for a Group device, the plugin also writes these states on the Group device itself (useful for control pages or other triggers):

  • memberCount — number of devices in the group
  • lastFiringDevice — name of the device that triggered the most recent fire
  • lastFiringTime — YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS
  • lastFiringDirection — activated / deactivated / changed
  • status — display string, e.g. "3 members"

Configuration file

Lives at:

<install>/Preferences/Plugins/com.clives.indigoplugin.deviceactivitymonitor/
├── device_activity_monitor_config.json   ← edit this
└── device_discovery.json                 ← generated by Discover Devices

<install> resolves via indigo.server.getInstallFolderPath() so the path follows your active Indigo version automatically.

Format

{
  "_usage": "Lines starting with # are ignored. Reload plugin after changes.",
  "excluded_ids": [],
  "devices": [
    {"id": 123456789, "name": "Front Door",  "state": "onState", "label": "Front Door",  "on_text": "OPEN", "off_text": "CLOSED"},
    {"id": 987654321, "name": "Basin mmWave","state": "pirDetection", "label": "PIR"},
    {"id": 987654321, "name": "Basin mmWave","state": "presence",     "label": "mmWave Presence"}
  ],
  "variables": [
    {"id": 241032502, "name": "Lux_Level", "label": "Lux Level"}
  ]
}

Conventions

  • # at the start of a line disables that entry. Use this to comment out a device without deleting the line
  • Trailing commas before ] or } are silently cleaned up
  • Multiple rows with the same id monitor multiple states on one device (e.g. PIR and mmWave on a multi-state sensor)
  • After saving, reload via Plugins → Device Activity Monitor → Reload Config File — no plugin restart required

Field reference

Field Required Description
id Yes Indigo device or variable ID (integer)
name No For your reference only — never used by the code
state Yes "onState" reads device.onState; any other name reads from device.states
label No Log text shown after the device name (defaults to name)
on_text No Log text when state is True (default ON)
off_text No Log text when state is False (default OFF)

Groups are NOT in this file

As of v1.8.0, groups live as damGroup Indigo devices, not in the JSON file. This file is logging-only.

Plugin menu

Under Plugins → Device Activity Monitor:

Item What it does
Discover All Devices (generate config file) Scans every Indigo device, classifies contact / motion / presence candidates using device type, Zigbee2MQTT capability flags, and name keywords. Writes device_discovery.json (full inventory) and a fresh device_activity_monitor_config.json, then applies it immediately. Preserves excluded_ids, your variables section, custom labels and manually added entries across re-runs, and refuses to overwrite a config file it cannot parse
Find Contact & Motion Sensors One-shot log dump of all sensor candidates with ready-to-paste config entries — useful for a quick check without regenerating the whole config
Reload Config File Re-reads the JSON and re-validates without a full plugin restart. Use after editing the config file by hand
Test Fire All Group Triggers Fires every enabled Group Changed trigger once so you can verify the wired-up actions without physically tripping a sensor
Toggle Device Change Log (on/off) Flips per-device / per-variable event-log lines on or off. When OFF the plugin still subscribes to changes (group triggers keep working) but writes nothing to the event log
Toggle Group Change Triggers (on/off) Flips group-device-driven custom triggers on or off. When OFF, damGroup device changes no longer fire damGroupChange events even if matching triggers are enabled
Toggle Timestamps in Log (on/off) Strips or restores the [HH:MM:SS.mmm] prefix on every line the plugin writes to the event log. Indigo's own column timestamp is unaffected
Show Plugin Info Prints the startup banner on demand, including current state of the three toggles above

All three toggles persist across plugin restarts (stored in pluginPrefs as logEnabled / groupEnabled / timestampEnabled) and default ON. As of v1.10.0 they are also available in the standard Configure dialog (Plugins → Device Activity Monitor → Configure), alongside a debug-logging checkbox — changes apply immediately on save.

Discovery

Discovery uses a layered classifier that gets the right answer even on generic Zigbee2MQTT devices that publish stub fields they don't physically have:

  1. Z2M ownerProps (authoritative when available): has_contact, has_occupancy, has_presence, has_pir
  2. deviceTypeId hints: z2mContactSensor → contact, z2mOccupancySensor → motion
  3. Motion-keyword veto: if the device name contains motion, pir, presence, occupancy, mmwave, radar, it can't be a contact sensor
  4. State-name match: contact / doorSensor / windowSensor → contact; occupancy / pirDetection / presence / motion / motionDetected → motion
  5. Name-keyword match: contact, door, window, etc. — gated on the device's Indigo class, so actuators (relays, dimmers, locks, thermostats) are never classified as sensors by name alone. "Front Door Lock" stays a lock

To permanently exclude a device from discovery output, add its ID to the excluded_ids array in the config file. Subsequent re-discovery runs will respect the exclusion and leave that device commented out. Discovery also flags any excluded ids whose devices no longer exist so the list stays clean.

To add a sensor that discovery missed, just add a line manually to devices[] — re-discovery keeps it in a dedicated "Manually added entries" section, along with any custom labels or on/off text you have set on the generated entries.

Log output examples

[14:23:01.452] Hall PIR Occupancy ON
[14:23:01.891] Basin Sensor mmWave Presence ON
[14:25:33.104] Front Door Contact OPEN
[14:25:41.230] Front Door Contact CLOSED
[14:26:10.512] Lux Level: 450 -> 520
[14:30:00.001] [Device Activity Monitor] Device renamed: 'Test Sensor' -> 'Hall PIR' (ID: 99887766)
[14:31:05.774] [Device Activity Monitor] WARNING - Monitored device deleted: 'Hall PIR' (ID: 99887766)

Group device states

Each damGroup device exposes:

State Type Updated when
memberCount Integer Group device is saved / reloaded
status String Display state — e.g. "3 members"
lastFiringDevice String A trigger wired to this group fires
lastFiringTime String YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS of last fire
lastFiringDirection String activated / deactivated / changed

Useful for control pages ("Living Room presence last activity: 2 minutes ago") or for chaining one group's activity into another trigger's condition.

Repository structure

README.md                                                  ← this file (GitHub displays this)
Device_Activity_Monitor.indigoPlugin/
├── Contents/
│   ├── Info.plist
│   └── Server Plugin/
│       ├── plugin.py                       ← main plugin code + ConfigUI callbacks
│       ├── Devices.xml                     ← damGroup device type
│       ├── Events.xml                      ← Group Changed trigger
│       ├── MenuItems.xml                   ← Plugins menu
│       ├── PluginConfig.xml                ← runtime toggles + debug logging
│       ├── plugin_utils.py                 ← on-demand info banner helper
│       ├── test_plugin.py                  ← 143 tests, runs without Indigo
│       └── IndigoSecrets_example.py        ← credential template (unused — ecosystem standard)

Migrating from "Sensor Monitor"

If you ever installed a pre-v1.9.0 release of this plugin under the old name:

  1. Disable Sensor Monitor in Indigo Manage Plugins
  2. Delete the old bundle at <install>/Plugins/Sensor_Monitor.indigoPlugin/
  3. Install Device Activity Monitor v1.9.0
  4. Move <install>/Preferences/Plugins/com.clives.indigoplugin.sensormonitor/ → <install>/Preferences/Plugins/com.clives.indigoplugin.deviceactivitymonitor/
  5. Rename sensor_monitor_config.json → device_activity_monitor_config.json inside that folder
  6. Old smGroup devices are not auto-migrated to damGroup — re-create groups via Devices → New Device

(For me specifically: that migration was done at the moment of the rename, so this section exists only for completeness if I ever do a clean reinstall.)

Changelog

Version Date Change
1.10.2 2026-08-02 Adds the support-URL key Indigo requires in every plugin, which gives the plugin an About Device Activity Monitor menu item linking to its page. No plugin logic changed
1.10.1 2026-07-21 Shared utility refresh — the log timestamp filter is now idempotent, so turning timestamps on and off twice no longer double-stamps every line, the module imports outside Indigo for offline tests, a malformed log call keeps its arguments instead of losing them, and a new shared as_bool() stops a preference saved as the string "false" reading as true. No plugin logic changed
1.10.0 2026-07-17 Deep-review feature batch — Test Fire All Group Triggers menu item, discovery applies its results immediately and preserves manually added entries, Configure dialog for the runtime toggles, stale group-member and stale-exclusion warnings, fallback config now ships empty
1.9.13 2026-07-17 Deep-review polish — one-line startup validation summary, deletion warnings always shown (and now cover group members), duplicate config entries skipped, triggers can no longer be saved without a group, timestamp toggle honoured on menu output
1.9.12 2026-07-17 Deep-review robustness — group triggers ignore housekeeping-state churn (no more double-fires on Zigbee2MQTT duplicate publishes), one failing trigger no longer blocks the rest, atomic config writes, toggle flips survive a crash, locks/relays no longer offered as sensors by name
1.9.11 2026-07-17 Deep-review fixes — group membership edits apply immediately (previously needed a plugin restart), a config typo can no longer stop the plugin loading, device names with quotes no longer corrupt the generated config, re-discovery preserves your variables and custom labels
1.9.10 2026-06-12 Discovery recognises Matter (indigo-matter) presence and contact sensors
1.9.9 2026-06-10 Fleet audit — lint cleanup and CI gate
1.9.8 2026-06-05 Estate bug-sweep — guarded config id parse, merged duplicate deviceDeleted
1.9.7 2026-06-04 Millisecond-precision timestamps on menu and discovery output
1.9.6 2026-05-25 Group devices restart their comms only when the member list changes — the folder filter is a picker for the dialog and never affected what is monitored, so changing it used to cycle the device for nothing (didDeviceCommPropertyChange)
1.9.5 2026-05-23 Three runtime toggle menu items — Device Change Log, Group Change Triggers, Timestamps in Log. Each is independent, persists across restarts, defaults ON
1.9.4 2026-05-14 Discovery correctly classifies multi-capability Aqara presence sensors (PS-S04D, FP1 etc.) using pirDetection / presenceDetectionOptions state names
1.9.3 2026-05-13 Added on_value / off_value config keys for explicit value matching on string-typed states (e.g. presenceEvent enter/leave)
1.9.2 2026-05-13 Trust Z2M has_* flags to exclude non-motion devices in discovery
1.9.1 2026-05-12 Minor discovery and config fixes
1.9.0 2026-05-12 Renamed Sensor Monitor → Device Activity Monitor (bundle ID, device type id, event id, config filename all changed; legacy migration code stripped)
1.8.1 2026-05-12 Dropped JSON-groups backward-compat path; damGroup devices the sole source of truth
1.8.0 2026-05-12 Groups are now first-class Indigo devices with Add/Remove ConfigUI
1.7.2 2026-05-12 Direction filter (any/activated/deactivated) on group triggers
1.7.1 2026-05-11 Moved config files from Logs/ to Preferences/
1.7.0 2026-05-11 Group-change custom triggers (JSON-defined, since superseded by damGroup devices)
1.6.0 2026-05-11 Z2M-aware sensor classifier (uses ownerProps has_* flags)
1.5.9 2026-02-27 Sync live plugin (multiple features since v1.4.0)
1.4.0 2026-02-27 Plugin menu — Discover Devices, Find Contact Sensors, Reload Config File
1.3.0 2026-02-27 JSON config file support
1.2.0 2026-02-27 Variable monitoring
1.1.0 2026-02-27 Startup validation, rename detection, deletion warning
1.0.0 2026-02-27 Initial release

Authors & licence

Vibed into existence by CliveS, who knew what he wanted, argued until he got it, and tested it on a real house. Typed at inhuman speed by Claude (Anthropic), who mostly did as it was told.

© 2026 CliveS · MIT licence — copy it, fork it, bend it, break it, fix it, ship it. If it breaks, you get to keep both pieces.

About

Indigo plugin with two halves: it logs state changes for any device or variable you point it at, and it fires direction-filtered group triggers when a whole set of devices turns on or off. One subscription replaces a pile of per-sensor triggers and scripts.

Topics

home-automationindigoindigo-domoticsindigo-pluginmonitoringsensors

Resources

Readme
MIT license
Activity

Stars

0 stars

Watchers

0 watching

Forks

0 forks
Report repository

Releases

Packages

Contributors

Languages