Getting started
Ten minutes from download to a hub page on a phone, if the cameras can wait. The cameras are the only part with anything to install by hand.
Would rather not do any of this yourself? Start with nothing but Claude is the same journey with Claude Code doing the typing — installing the plugin, the camera tools, an MCP server and Tailscale, and then building the pages you actually want.
What you need
- Indigo 2025.2 (Python 3.13). The pages are served by Indigo’s own web server on port 8176.
- An Indigo API key. Every page reads live data through Indigo’s REST API with a Bearer token, so a browser has to hold one. Make a key on the Authorizations page of your Indigo account, or create a local secret in the install folder’s
Preferences/secrets.json(Indigo’s Web Server documentation covers both). The plugin never writes the key into anything under/public/; a browser is given it once and keeps it locally. - Device folders that mean rooms. The room pages are built from Indigo device folders. With nothing configured the plugin uses one house’s folder names and yours will produce no rooms — so the first thing to do after installing is tick your folders on the Settings page.
Everything below is optional, and every page that depends on something says so rather than showing an empty chart:
| Optional piece | What it unlocks |
|---|---|
| ffmpeg and go2rtc (Homebrew) | The camera grid, the hub’s camera strip and the cameras on room pages. Both are required; without either the plugin logs a warning and shows no streams. See Cameras |
| SQL Logger plugin (ships with Indigo) | The Graphs page, the Timeline, the Home Insights card, the Mains page’s trust figures and the Meter page’s history |
| PostgreSQL behind the SQL Logger | Supported as an alternative backend to SQLite. Reads go through the psql client, so Postgres.app or the postgresql client package must be installed. Use Plugins → Dashboards → Test History Connection before relying on it |
| SigenEnergyManager plugin | The Energy, Cost and Laundry pages and the hub’s Energy · Now card. Without it the three pages hide themselves, the menu drops their tiles and the hub says in one line which plugin is missing. Carbon and Mains do not need it |
| EvoHomeControl plugin | The heating page’s boost and force buttons. Zone temperatures and setpoints work with any thermostat device |
| UniFiHealth plugin (v0.2.0 or later) | The Wi-Fi pages |
| OpenWeatherMap key | The hub’s weather card forecast and sun times |
| Pillow and qrcode | Camera thumbnails and setup-link QR codes. These install themselves from requirements.txt the first time the plugin starts |
The companion scripts in scripts/ | The Presence page, the hourly error watch behind the Alerts card and the Activity page, and the Laundry page. Copy the ones you want into Indigo’s Python Scripts folder; the plugin picks them up on its next tick and logs which are missing at startup. See How it is built |
Install
- Go to the Releases page and download
Dashboards.indigoPlugin.zip. - Unzip it — you get
Dashboards.indigoPlugin. - Double-click
Dashboards.indigoPlugin. Indigo installs it and asks whether to enable it. - Cameras only:
brew install ffmpegandbrew install go2rtc(or download the go2rtc binary and set its path under Configure). The rest of the plugin works without them. - Enter credentials under Plugins → Dashboards → Configure — at minimum the Indigo API key, plus the camera user and password if you have cameras. See Configuration for what each field does and for the
IndigoSecrets.pyalternative. - Open
http://<indigo-host>:8176/public/dashboards/index.html— or pick Plugins → Dashboards → Open Dashboards in Browser.
Using Claude Code? It has shell access and can install both camera binaries, install the plugin and fill in the credentials for you — no other plugins or MCP servers needed. See Claude Code and MCP tools.
Pairing a browser
The pages themselves are public files. What a browser needs is the API key, and there are four ways it can get one:
- The Connect form. Open the hub and it asks for the key once, then stores it in that browser.
- A one-time setup link. Plugins → Dashboards → Generate One-Time Setup Link (+QR) writes a link (and a QR code) into the log. Open it on the device and
setup.htmlstores the key and burns the token, so the link cannot be used twice. Unredeemed links expire on their own. - Auto-seeding on the LAN. With Auto-seed the API key to LAN browsers ticked under Configure, a new browser on the home network or the tailnet pairs itself on first visit through the plugin’s own port 8177. No ceremony at all.
- Guest pairing. For a wall tablet or a visitor’s phone that should only ever look, Plugins → Dashboards → Show Guest Access Info logs a pairing URL. The device gets a guest token instead of the key, so there is no control surface on it at all. Home network and Tailscale only.
The footer of every page carries a Reset connection link that forgets the stored key.
The first five minutes
- Rooms. Open the hub, tap Settings (or the Settings card), and on the Rooms card tick the Indigo device folders that are your rooms. Save. Rooms appear on the menu straight away.
- Cameras. On the Cameras card add each camera’s address, name and vendor (Dahua or Hikvision), and tick the ones for the hub’s strip. Camera changes need a plugin restart; the card says so.
- Check it. Plugins → Dashboards → Test Dashboards Setup runs every check in one go — API URL and key, camera credentials and list, room folders, the SQL Logger history, the public pages folder, the liveness stamp, and whether SigenEnergyManager is present — and logs a verdict per line. An optional piece that is absent is a SKIP, not a failure.
- Pin it. On an iPhone or iPad, open the hub in Safari, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen. On a Mac, Safari’s File → Add to Dock…, or Chrome’s install icon in the address bar. The dashboard then opens full-screen like an app, and links stay inside it.
Demo mode
Open demo.html and every page runs from sanitised sample data with a gentle state simulator — solar wobbles, the battery drifts, motion flickers, and controls change the local fixture so toggles feel real. No devices are touched. An orange banner along the bottom says so; tap it to leave.
Upgrading
Download the new zip and double-click the bundle as before; Indigo replaces the old one. The plugin mirrors its pages into Indigo’s public folder every time it starts, so there is nothing else to copy. After upgrading past v2.70, reload any dashboard tab that has been open for days — a wall tablet running old JavaScript can poll a restarting plugin in a way that stalls the web server for about five minutes, and the newer pages know not to.