diff --git a/utils/zm-alarm.pl b/utils/zm-alarm.pl
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..542a2a09e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/utils/zm-alarm.pl
@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env perl
+
+# While this script is running, it will print out the state of each alarm on the system.
+# This script is an example of calling external scripts in reaction to a
+# monitor changing state.  Simply replace the print() commands with system(),
+# for example, to call external scripts.
+
+use strict;
+use warnings;
+use ZoneMinder;
+use Switch;
+
+$| = 1;
+
+my @monitors;
+my $dbh = DBI->connect( "DBI:mysql:database=".ZM_DB_NAME.";host=".ZM_DB_HOST, ZM_DB_USER, ZM_DB_PASS ) or die "Could not connect to the database.\n";
+my $sql = "SELECT * FROM Monitors";
+my $sth = $dbh->prepare_cached( $sql ) or die( "Can't prepare '$sql': ".$dbh->errstr() );
+my $res = $sth->execute() or die( "Can't execute '$sql': ".$sth->errstr() );
+
+while ( my $monitor = $sth->fetchrow_hashref() ) {
+    push( @monitors, $monitor );
+}
+
+while (1) {
+        foreach my $monitor (@monitors) {
+                my $monitorState = zmGetMonitorState($monitor);
+                printState($monitor->{Id}, $monitor->{Name}, $monitorState);
+        }
+        sleep 1;
+}
+
+sub printState {
+        my ($monitor_id, $monitor_name, $state) = @_;
+        my $time = localtime();
+
+        switch ($state) {
+                case 0 { print "$time - $monitor_name:\t Idle!\n" }
+                case 1 { print "$time - $monitor_name:\t Prealarm!\n" }
+                case 2 { print "$time - $monitor_name:\t Alarm!\n" }
+                case 3 { print "$time - $monitor_name:\t Alert!\n" }
+        }
+}