INDI Safety Monitor

The INDI Safety Monitor is a versatile auxiliary driver designed to safeguard your observatory. It acts as a central hub, aggregating safety data from multiple INDI devices into one clear, unified status. By monitoring weather stations, power supplies, cloud sensors, and other critical hardware simultaneously, it ensures your equipment stays protected under any conditions.

Why Use a Safety Monitor?

Running an automated or remote observatory requires constant vigilance. The Safety Monitor simplifies this by providing a “single source of truth” for your system’s health:

• Centralized Monitoring: Keep track of multiple devices from a single interface.
• Worst-Case Logic: If even one monitored device reports an unsafe condition, the entire system is immediately flagged as Unsafe. This “fail-safe” approach ensures maximum protection.
• Seamless Integration: It provides a standard interface that Ekos and custom control scripts use to trigger automated shutdowns or pause imaging.

With the safety monitor, it is possible for clients like Ekos Scheduler to execute multi-night scheduling sessions whereas the observatory can shutdown if necessary due to adverse weather conditions and wait until the conditions improve to resume the jobs.

How It Works

Device Aggregation

Safety Monitor tracks the SAFETY_STATUS property of every connected device. Each device is represented by a status indicator, with the overall system state reflecting the worst case among them:

Configuration

Setting up your monitor is straightforward. You define your monitored hardware using a comma-separated list of connection strings.

Format: DeviceName@host:port

Examples:

• Local Device: Open Weather Map (Connects to localhost:7624 by default)
• Mixed Setup: Open Weather Map, UPS@localhost:7624
• Remote Hardware: Weather [email protected], Power [email protected]:7624

Manual Override

Sometimes you need to bypass automated alerts—for maintenance or testing. The Safety Monitor includes a manual override switch to force the status to “Safe.”

Real-World Use Cases

• Weather Protection: Monitor rain, wind, and cloud cover via drivers like Open Weather Map, AAG Cloud Watcher, or WeatherFlow.
• Power Security: Watch your UPS and power controllers. If the grid fails or battery levels drop, the system triggers a safety alert.
• Cloud & Sky Quality: Integrate dedicated cloud sensors or sky quality meters to stop imaging when transparency drops.
• Enclosure Safety: Link your dome or roof drivers to ensure the observatory only operates when the structure is in a safe state.

You can chain all of these together for total peace of mind:

indiserver -p 8000 indi_safetymonitor indi_simulator_weather "Cloud Watcher"@mysite.com:9000 UPS Dome [email protected]

Getting Started

The Safety Monitor should run using a dedicated indiserver separate from the one used by your equipment profile. You can start it either directly via the terminal or by creating a profile in INDI Web Manager or via a systemd service. If the safety monitor driver is running on the same machine as the rest of your equipment, select a different INDI port in the INDI Web Manager profile settings (e.g. 8000) then start the profile. You can also enable Autostart and Autoconnect in that profile to ensure the Safety Monitor starts automatically after boot.

1. Launch your hardware drivers: Ensure your weather stations, UPS, or other safety devices are running.
2. Start the Safety Monitor:

• • Using Terminal

indiserver -p 8000 indi_safetymonitor indi_simulator_weather

• • Using Webmanager
• 
• Using Systemd

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/indi-safety-monitor.service

[Unit]
Description=INDI Server with Safety Monitor and Weather Drivers
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
# Run as a specific user. Change to your actual username if needed.
User=root
ExecStart=/usr/bin/indiserver -p 8000 indi_safetymonitor indi_simulator_weather
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

# Reload systemd to pick up the new service file
sudo systemctl daemon-reload

# Enable the service to run on startup
sudo systemctl enable indi-safety-monitor.service

# Start the service immediately
sudo systemctl start indi-safety-monitor.service

Integration with clients

Currently, Ekos Scheduler has full support for the INDI Safety Monitor. To configure Ekos Scheduler:

• In the Scheduler tab, go to Options and locate the Weather section.
• Mark the “Weather grace period” as checked. (Wait minutes for the weather to improve before giving up)
• Enter the address of your Safety Monitor driver and your device connection string.

Monitor the Status: the SAFETY_STATUS Property will keep an eye on your observatory’s health in real-time.

The Safety Monitor will allow you to:

• Automate Shutdowns: Park the mount and close the roof automatically when conditions turn red.
• Pause Sequences: Automatically pause imaging during “Yellow” (marginal) conditions and resume when things clear up.
• Dashboard Alerts: See your observatory’s safety status at a glance directly on the Ekos dashboard.