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Monitors
Monitors separate stock detection from checkout. One lightweight monitor task polls whether a product is available, while the regular tasks in the same group pre-warm their sessions and check out the instant the monitor signals.
How it works
- Create a monitor in a task group with the Create Monitor button.
- Create regular tasks in the same group with profiles, proxies and payment settings.
- Start the group. The monitor begins polling; the tasks prepare their sessions and wait.
- When the monitor sees stock, every waiting task in the group gets the signal and attempts checkout immediately.
A monitor needs no profile, no account and no payment method — it only checks availability.
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Product URL | The product page to watch |
| Delay | Polling interval in ms. Otto enforces a 5-second minimum |
| Proxy Group | Optional. Lidl's and Otto's monitors need none at all |
Three stores add their own extra fields to the Create Monitor form:
- Mueller — a Store ID field, since Mueller's stock is per pickup store. It's required — leave it empty and the monitor refuses to start, see the warning below.
- Otto — an Also watch third-party offers checkbox with its own Third-Party Max Price, covering marketplace sellers besides Otto's own listing. Details in the Otto guide.
- Smyths Toys — a Stock Source field, plus a Delivery Mode field that offers a third option here, Any channel. One monitor can therefore serve a group that mixes delivery and Click & Collect tasks. Details in the Smyths Toys guide.
Which stores to use a monitor with
Mueller: do not use a monitor for checkout
A Mueller task is already its own stock detector, and adding a monitor makes it slower — the task then waits for the signal before it starts preparing. Run Mueller as a plain task. Full explanation.
Mueller monitor: Store ID is required
If you do run a Mueller monitor (e.g. just for a stock alert), give it a Store ID. Left empty, it stops immediately with "Missing store: set Store ID for the monitor" — same as the checkout task with a missing profile store, and for the same reason: there is no "check every store" query to fall back to.
| Store | Recommendation |
|---|---|
| Lidl | Recommended. Its own monitor needs no proxy, no session and no captcha — many watched products cost one request in total |
| Tonies | Recommended. Its own monitor, and it stays quiet on pre-orders the shop lists but will not sell |
| Otto | Works standalone. No account and no login needed, runs from a home connection |
| Coolblue | Works standalone. No account and no login needed: it checks real availability by trying to add the article to a throwaway cart, so it reports what a checkout will actually be able to do rather than what the product page claims. The phantom cart is discarded when the poll ends |
| Thalia | Optional. Works, including with wildcard tasks |
| Mueller | Not for checkout. See above |
| Every other store | Works. Each store available in the app brings its own monitor rather than falling back on a generic one |
Smyths Toys monitors need the same key
A Smyths monitor builds a session the same way a checkout task does, so it also needs the Hyper Solutions API key (Settings → Captcha) and stops without it. Put it on the same proxy group as the group's tasks and they share one paid call instead of each buying their own.
Wildcard tasks
A regular task whose Product field is *, empty, or free text like Placeholder is a wildcard. It pre-warms and then takes whichever product the group's monitors find, so you can have tasks ready before you know what is dropping.
Which tasks a monitor pings is decided centrally:
- A task watching the same product as a monitor in the group → only that task is pinged.
- A task with placeholder input, or one whose product no monitor watches → every such task in the group is pinged.
Supported by every store available in the app — with one exception: on Coolblue, give the task the product's actual URL instead of a bare *. A plain placeholder doesn't reliably pick up what the monitor finds there.
Monitor vs. regular task
| Monitor | Regular task | |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Detect stock | Check out |
| Profile | Not needed | Required |
| Session | Lightweight | Full session, prepared in advance |
| Status | In stock (poll #N) / Out of stock (poll #N) | Waiting for monitor... → checkout |
| Badge | MON | — |
Best practices
- One monitor per product. Several monitors on the same product just waste requests.
- Lower delay on the monitor for faster detection. The tasks themselves don't poll, so this doesn't multiply traffic per task.
- Give the monitor proxies where it uses them, so high-frequency polling doesn't burn the checkout IPs. Lidl and Otto monitors need none.
- Pre-warm is the point. Stores with a slow one-off step — Thalia's guest registration, Tonies' cart creation — gain the most, because that work is finished before the signal arrives.
Webhook
Set a dedicated Monitor Webhook under Settings → Discord to get stock alerts in their own channel. If it is empty, monitor alerts go to the main checkout webhook.