Plugins and local control

Posted on
Wed Oct 18, 2017 9:20 am
johnf offline
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Joined: Oct 18, 2017

Plugins and local control

Is there an easy way to see which plugins require internet connectivity to function? My internet is spotty at best (one reason why I chose Indigo to begin with), but it seems that a lot of the plugins connect Indigo to the device's cloud service rather than to the device itself.

Posted on
Wed Oct 18, 2017 9:59 am
jay (support) offline
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Re: Plugins and local control

No. Plugins are written in Python and Python has a lot of built-in network communication functionality that can be used in plugins and the Indigo Server is completely unaware what it's doing.

Most of those plugins work like that because the device makers decided that the only integration point would be in their cloud and thus don't provide a way to talk to devices locally. It totally sucks IMO, and I try to not rely on those kinds of devices for critical work. Unfortunately, I had to for my sprinkler system (Rachio).

If you don't have reliable Internet the best recommendation is to just avoid devices that require cloud access to be integrated with 3rd party services.

Jay (Indigo Support)
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Posted on
Wed Oct 18, 2017 10:36 am
johnf offline
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Re: Plugins and local control

Thanks. That would be a good thing to note on each plugin (Internet Connection Required: Y/N) since it's not obvious (at least to me). :)

Posted on
Wed Oct 18, 2017 11:00 am
jay (support) offline
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Re: Plugins and local control

johnf wrote:
Thanks. That would be a good thing to note on each plugin (Internet Connection Required: Y/N) since it's not obvious (at least to me). :)


That's something the plugin developers would need to call out in the documentation for their plugins. Unfortunately, at this point in time, it's probably a reasonable assumption that integrating with other smarthome devices (outside of the built-in ones) will require network functionality. And of course you can always confirm with the developer or others using the plugin before purchasing the device.

Jay (Indigo Support)
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Posted on
Wed Oct 18, 2017 11:34 am
DaveL17 offline
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Re: Plugins and local control

I think this is a great idea and I've updated the documentation for each of my plugins to highlight whether they need WAN access to work, whether only select features would not work without access (like checking for updates to the plugin software), or whether the plugin does not need any WAN access. These changes will be rolled out as I update each plugin.

Thanks for the good idea.

I came here to drink milk and kick ass....and I've just finished my milk.

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