Not a New Idea ๐Ÿ“š

Lukas Runge

Lukas Runge

3 min read

๐Ÿ›๏ธ A Trip Through Fixture Control History

The story of lighting control is a fascinating one. Back in 1959, the invention of phase-cut dimmers made it possible to control dimmers via a separate 0-10V control signal for the first time. This innovation allowed dimmers, which produced the operating current for lamps, to be moved to a separate room ๐Ÿ .

When Vari-Lite introduced the first moving light (VL0) in 1981, it was a game-changer ๐ŸŽฎ. It made sense to take things a step further by generating the operating currents for the motors within the fixture itself. This advancement created a need for a protocol capable of controlling multiple attributes of a remote device.

To meet this need, the USITT standardized Digital Multiplex (DMX) in 1986, based on the established RS-485 protocol. DMX was the first digital protocol that allowed centralized control of distributed lighting technology ๐ŸŒ. It enabled control over not just the attributes of a luminaire โ€” like color, focus, and zoom โ€” but also devices that werenโ€™t luminaires, such as curtain systems ๐ŸŽญ.

For a long time, DMX was robust and met industry requirements. However, as modern fixtures became more advanced, fewer fixtures could operate within a single DMX universe ๐ŸŒŒ.

๐Ÿšง The Limitations of DMX and the Rise of Art-Net

To avoid the hassle of running multiple DMX universes onto one truss, the Ethernet-based Art-Net was developed. This protocol eliminated the one-universe-per-cable limitation by building on UDP using broadcast ๐Ÿš€. However, it didnโ€™t adopt other advantages of modern network stacks. Essentially, it was a patch rather than a solution.

Recognizing the need for a more advanced protocol, ESTA worked on developing a new control protocol that leveraged modern networking advantages and met growing user expectations.

๐Ÿงฉ Enter ACN: A Noble Attempt

After three years of development, the Architecture for Control Networks (ACN) was released in 2006 as ANSI Standard E1.17-2006 ๐Ÿ“œ. ACN was designed with ambitious goals:

As you can see, many ideas that SHIFTY brings to the table arenโ€™t new at all ๐Ÿ”„.

๐Ÿค” So, Why Didnโ€™t ACN Take Off?

In January 2018, Wayne Howell wrote, โ€œACN has received limited industry support and is complex to implement, particularly in low processing power products.โ€ This complexity likely hindered its widespread adoption ๐Ÿ˜•.

The only remnant of ACN still present today is Streaming ACN (sACN). Itโ€™s used as an alternative to Art-Net, utilizing multicast instead of broadcast for more efficient bandwidth usage ๐Ÿ“ถ. Other than that, it doesnโ€™t offer more than what Art-Net already did.

๐Ÿ“œ Conclusion: Learning from the Past

Thirty-eight years after DMX was invented, every subsequent protocol has tried to remain backward-compatible with this industry behemoth ๐Ÿฆ•. Sadly, this means weโ€™re still dealing with the overhead and limitations it brings ๐Ÿ˜ฉ.

With SHIFTY, weโ€™re aiming to change that ๐Ÿ› ๏ธ. Weโ€™re reinventing fixture control from the ground up. If youโ€™d like to see this project succeed, youโ€™re welcome to participate in its development ๐Ÿ™Œ.

We are looking for contributors to help us design, build and (probably most important) test SHIFTY. If you are interested, please reach out to us on GitHub or via our contact form.

Letโ€™s make lighting design a breeze together! ๐ŸŒˆ