Indigo for macOS makes it easy to automate your home

Perceptive Automation’s Indigo is an intelligent, and useful, home control server . And the company concentrates its development efforts on the Mac. Cool! Indigo provides tools to manage, automate, and control your home. With it you can:

• Incorporate motion detectors to turn on lights or other devices;
• Automatically send emails based on events, like leaving your garage door open or when motion is detected after dark;
• Automatically turn on landscape or holiday lighting at sunset and off at sunrise or some other preset time or duration;
• Create complex conditions using an easy and intuitive rule builder – no need to water the yard if it’s raining outside;
• Create different lighting scenes, for example “Party,” “Movie,” “Sleeping,” “Away,” for perfect multi-room lighting at the touch of a button;
• Control your whole-house audio via iTunes or your home theater system – pause the movie if your doorbell rings;
• Automate your thermostat usage.

Indigo, now up to version 7, supports a variety of Z-Wave devices and built-in support for three of the most popular home automation protocols: Z-Wave, INSTEON, and X10. And there’s full support for the release of Indigo Touch, an iOS app for native iPhone and iPad remote control.

Indigo supports Z-Wave lighting, appliance, thermostat, and sensor devices. Z-Wave devices. This is a boon for those outside of North America who have had to rely on X10 or other older solutions to meet their automation needs. With this new 

Indigo can integrate devices of any supported protocol together in a technology independent way, and can do so simultaneously. Z-Wave and INSTEON, along with X10 and third party plugin-based devices, coexist just fine in a single environment.

You can pick and choose devices that solve your automation needs without regard to protocol. For instance, you can use an IP-based thermostat, Z-Wave, INSTEON, and Philips Hue lights, and INSTEON or X10 keypads, motion sensors, and sprinklers in a single interface.

Other features include support for NSTEON devices, including the Leak Sensor, Smoke Bridge, and DIN Rail modules. A Virtual Device interface makes it easier for users to integrate other devices and services and to create cross-technology scenes. Energy monitoring capabilities are available for both whole house and for individual lights and appliances.

Indigo 7 is available for $249.95 at the Perceptive Automation website. It requires macOS10.7.5 or greater.

Apple World Today Rating (out of 5 stars): ★★★★

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