New to home automation

Hi all,

I am new to home automation but I am an experienced OSX/Mac user (also iPhone/iPad).
In the next months we will move to a new flat (in Europe, not USA/Canada) and I will start with home automation.
I will go with Z-Wave. The first idea was to buy Fibaro Home Center 2 but then I discovered Indigo.
At home I have two Mac, an iMac and a MacBookPro. Idea is to buy a Mac Mini and run Indigo on it.

I have a few question:

- the Mac Mini will be located in a separate room, so I will not have keyboard/monitor/mouse, then I think I have to use "screen sharing" from a second me
- I do not know if the internet provider I will have in the new house will allow access from external; do I have to setup my router with port forwarding and so on? Can I access Indigo from external? How?

I will have for sure other question, but later

Thanks
Marco

yes, you can access indigo from the outside:
1. through indigo-touch on your iPhone/ ipad
2. indigo client on your laptop indigo-server at home if you forward the right port on your router , check the prefs in indigo for the port
3. web access similar to iTouch

[EDIT] you can also access indigo while being at home as client server...

Karl

Does it mean I need to forward ports on my router?
Also for access with Indigo Touch?

client server: forward port 1176 to your indigo server on your router, and use either e.g. no-ip.com & dyn dns to directly address your Indigo server or use static IP

Indigo touch & web access
(a) use indigodomo.net (~$2/month)
(b) forward port 8176 to your indigo server ....

I hope thats right, at least thats what I am doing (using port forward and as backup I am also using go prism.com)


and naturally while you are at home just go directly to your server... there are several discussion threads on this. on port forwarding , local loop ...
Karl

I would add that Indigo works very well on a headless Mac. You can access it with screen sharing or with Indigo running on another machine in client mode. As Karl says, there are many ways to run automation tasks (turn on and off devices, etc.) That said, there are certain (few) things that require server access like linking to external scripts.

Indigo is widely used internationally and the proprietors are super about adding support for new devices as they're identified.

Lastly, the user forums here are exceptionally friendly and helpful. If you can't find an answer to a question here, you can usually get one in no time.

Good luck!
Dave

You could always use Back to My Mac, but that can be a bit flaky at times, but that is more so when connecting from outside your home network, at home works 99% of the time. As a back up I also have installed iTeleport (it uses VNC), which can also be flaky. Often the Mac to Mac connection fails when I'm trying to connect from work, while the iOS to Mac works, even when connecting through the same WiFi connection. So between the two one can remotely connect.

But really, 95% of the time I connect to my Indigo server using the Indigo desktop application, which works brilliantly. I usually just connect to the Mac so I can install plugin updates.

If need be there is this device to run the Mac mini as headless - haven't used it myself, just made a note of it as it was my plan to do the same with a mini but managed to nab an old Unibody Macbook to run Indigo, SecuritySpy, Mavericks Server, and hopefully soon Airfoil. Have to say it works great and is nice knowing it has the battery just in case.

You will need to open ports up on your router, but I can't imagine an issue with your ISP.

Good luck and enjoy.

Simon

[jay (support)]

The answers above are pretty much correct, but I want to clarify them somewhat.

- the Mac Mini will be located in a separate room, so I will not have keyboard/monitor/mouse, then I think I have to use "screen sharing" from a second me

Indigo is split into server and client applications. You can install the Indigo Client application only (/Applications/Indigo 6) on your MacBook or iMac using the Installer (click the customize button in the installer). That will allow you to connect to the Indigo Server on the Mac mini over the network and you can perform just about all configuration that way. As pointed out above, you may need to access the mini directly if you're using any script files, but you can do that over file sharing. You can, of course, use screen sharing if you wish as well.

- I do not know if the internet provider I will have in the new house will allow access from external; do I have to setup my router with port forwarding and so on? Can I access Indigo from external? How?

To have Indigo Touch (both for iOS and for the web) work from the internet we recommend that you use an Indigo Reflector. This doesn't require you to poke any holes in your router's firewall or or perhaps experience any port blocking by your ISP. It's all configuration free and also gives you secure SSL access. You can get a free 30-day trial to test it out and subscriptions are quite reasonable.