zm-py

A lightweight Python API client for ZoneMinder, built specifically for the Home Assistant ZoneMinder integration.

The official Home Assistant ZoneMinder component depends on zm-py==0.5.4. Active development of the integration has moved to nabbi/ha-zoneminder; it is unknown if or when those changes will be submitted back to HA core.

Project Status

This project is in maintenance mode. zm-py provides the limited set of ZoneMinder API interactions that Home Assistant needs (monitors, camera streaming, events, sensors, and switches). Bug fixes and compatibility updates are accepted; new feature development is not planned.

Not pyzm / pyzm2

zm-py is not a general-purpose ZoneMinder Python library. For full-featured ZoneMinder API access, see pyzm or its fork pyzm2. zm-py covers only the subset of the ZoneMinder API required by Home Assistant and carries no heavy dependencies. Replacing zm-py with pyzm or pyzm2 would require significant refactoring of the HA integration due to dependency conflicts and functional differences.

Origins

zm-py is based on code that was originally part of Home Assistant. Historical sources and authorship information is available as part of the Home Assistant project:

Documentation

API Reference — all public classes, methods, properties, and enums
Architecture — package structure, design patterns, caching strategy, Mermaid diagrams
Architecture diagrams:

Installation

PyPI

pip install zm-py

Usage

from zoneminder.zm import ZoneMinder

SERVER_HOST = "{{host}}:{{port}}"
USER = "{{user}}"
PASS = "{{pass}}"
SERVER_PATH = "{{path}}"

zm_client = ZoneMinder(
    server_host=SERVER_HOST,
    server_path=SERVER_PATH,
    username=USER,
    password=PASS,
    verify_ssl=False,
    stream_scale=50,       # optional: scale streams to 50%
    stream_maxfps=5.0,     # optional: cap MJPEG at 5 FPS
)

# Zoneminder authentication
zm_client.login()


# Get all monitors
monitors = zm_client.get_monitors()

for monitor in monitors:
    print(monitor)

>>> Monitor(id='monitor_id', name='monitor_name', controllable='is_controllable')


# Move camera down
controllable_monitors = [m for m in monitors if m.controllable]

for monitor in controllable_monitors:
    zm_client.move_monitor(monitor, "right")

Metadata

Release files for zm-py 0.5.7

For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.

Source distribution (sdist)

Source distribution for zm-py 0.5.7
File	Size	Uploaded
zm_py-0.5.7.tar.gz	48.5 kB	Oct 5, 2026	Details

Built distribution (wheel)

Table of built distributions (wheels) for zm-py 0.5.7
File	Interpreter	ABI	Platform	Reset
zm_py-0.5.7-py3-none-any.whl 19.6 kB Oct 5, 2026	Python 3	none	any	Details

Total release size: 68.1 kB

Release files / zm_py-0.5.7.tar.gz

Download URL	zm_py-0.5.7.tar.gz
Size	48.5 kB
Tags	Source
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums	`74d209f5502a1f66af432140a26ead89e878b69ba464e42669ac76e335aeb699`
BLAKE2b-256 checksum How to use checksums	`73faa98be69324f49c622bf3de76f8e9506850ba051fc73b28dc691072d6588b`
Upload date	Oct 5, 2026
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing?	No
Uploaded via	`twine/6.2.0 CPython/3.14.7`

Release files / zm_py-0.5.7-py3-none-any.whl

Download URL	zm_py-0.5.7-py3-none-any.whl
Size	19.6 kB
Tags	Python 3
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums	`107359026714cf4ec75a84ee40f73314c8167c59a4057057289894eb850b7bf2`
BLAKE2b-256 checksum How to use checksums	`7af34e0f8296f6bd0c7b79634dd754b3f7fea75e8ec5a8a36de416c6bad4b228`
Upload date	Oct 5, 2026
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing?	No
Uploaded via	`twine/6.2.0 CPython/3.14.7`