Getting started

What you need

  • Indigo 2025.2 or later.
  • A Honeywell Evohome system — the controller and its radiator valves.
  • A RAMSES-ESP gateway, joined to your Wi-Fi and plugged into USB power within radio range of your heating.
  • An MQTT broker on your network, such as Mosquitto, which can run on the Mac that runs Indigo. You need its network address — the four numbers separated by dots, such as 192.168.1.10 — and, if you set one up, its username and password.
  • The Pushover plugin if you want alerts on your phone when the gateway goes offline. It is optional.

1. Point the gateway at your broker

The gateway has to know where your MQTT broker is. You set this by plugging it into a computer with a USB cable and typing a few commands into a serial terminal (at 115200 baud). The RAMSES-ESP project explains how to connect and how to join it to your Wi-Fi. The broker commands are:

mqtt user <username>
mqtt password <password>
mqtt broker mqtt://<broker address>:1883
reset

Put mqtt:// in front of the broker’s address. A bare address does not connect.

2. Install the plugin

  1. Go to the Releases page and download RAMSES_ESP.indigoPlugin.zip
  2. Unzip the downloaded file — you will get RAMSES_ESP.indigoPlugin
  3. Double-click RAMSES_ESP.indigoPlugin — Indigo will install it automatically

Indigo asks whether to enable the plugin. Say yes.

3. Tell the plugin where the broker is

Open Plugins → RAMSES ESP → Configure and fill in:

  • Broker Host — the broker’s network address. Leave it blank if your IndigoSecrets.py file already gives it, as the Settings page explains.
  • Broker Port — leave it at 1883 unless you changed it on the broker.
  • Username (optional) and Password (optional) — only if your broker asks for them.

Leave Discovered Gateway ID empty. The plugin finds the gateway by itself and fills it in. Leave everything else as it is to start with, and click Save. Every setting is explained on the Settings page.

4. Check it works

Look in the Indigo Event Log. Within a few seconds you should see the plugin connect to the broker, then a line saying Gateway discovered, followed by the gateway’s ID, which looks like 18:123456.

As the Evohome controller sends out its regular readings, a device appears for each zone, in a new device folder called RAMSES. Each starts with a name such as RAMSES Zone 3, and shows the room temperature once the first reading arrives.

Try changing one zone’s heat setpoint in Indigo. The device shows the new target once the controller reports it back, which is usually within a few seconds. Zone Mode changes to permanent override when the controller next reports that zone’s mode.

If nothing appears, the When something goes wrong page goes through the usual causes.

5. Optional extras

  • Rename the zone devices to suit you — the plugin never renames a device you have renamed.
  • Look at the Valve health settings, especially if any of your zones has no radiator valve.
  • If the gateway is powered from a smart plug that Indigo controls, turn on the power-cycle watchdog.