Device catalog

Every official Tangle device module by category, with what it controls, its protocol and the setup each device needs.

This page lists the official device modules, grouped by category. Each table gives the module id, what it controls, how it talks to the device, and the setup needed on the device side. To add a device with one of these modules, see Devices.

Some modules include setup steps for the device side (a script to copy, a remote-access setting to enable). The designer runs them as setup assistants on the device page; see Setup assistants. The setup notes on this page say what each one does.

The catalog has 103 modules. Settings are listed by name; secrets (passwords, PINs, keys) are stored in the credential store, never in the project. Modules that talk RS-232 also accept a network serial port (tcp://, rfc2217:// or udp:// through an IP-to-serial gateway); see Network serial ports.

#Timecode and clock references

Timecode modules are native programs built for steady timing. Inputs report tangle.timecode state (timecode, fps, running, signal) and can be chased by a timeline. Outputs generate timecode from start, stop and locate, which core uses to output a timeline's position. See Timelines.

Setup notes:

• LTC: connect the LTC cable to a line input (reader) or line output (generator). The audio-devices setup step lists the sound card inputs and outputs. If no sound card matches, the device is offline with the list of devices that exist.
• MTC and MSC: plug in the MIDI interface first. The midi-ports setup step lists the ports. For virtual ports, enable the IAC Driver in Audio MIDI Setup on macOS, or use loopMIDI on Windows. The port list is checked every 10 s, so an unplugged interface goes offline.
• RTP-MIDI: as initiator, Tangle invites the peer at host:port; as listen, Tangle waits for invitations on localPort. Windows may ask to allow the UDP ports through the firewall on first use. Kissbox interfaces running RTP-MIDI firmware use misc.rtpmidi.timecode.
• Kissbox MIDI: the default ports and the datagram format are assumptions; check them in the Kissbox configuration tool before relying on this module.
• PTP: ports 319 and 320 need administrator rights: root on macOS and Linux (or CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE on Linux); Windows usually allows them but may ask about the firewall. Without them the device shows error with that explanation. Accuracy is in the tens to hundreds of microseconds.
• Status: a timecode input goes timeout when no timecode arrives for dropoutMs (default 1000) and back online when it returns. Art-Net timecode inputs stay online and set signal to false instead.
• Edition: chasing or generating timecode, and PTP clock sync, require Tangle Pro or Ultimate. See Licensing.

#Projectors

Setup notes:

• PJLink: turn on PJLink in the projector's network menu and note its password. Class 2 projectors are found by discovery; class 1 projectors do not answer the search.
• Barco Pulse: the JSON-RPC API is on by default; no password is needed for the functions this module uses.
• Christie: projectors with RS-232 only need an RS-232-to-IP adapter (a serial device server in TCP server mode); set host and port to the adapter. Projectors or adapters that ask for a login on connect are not supported yet.
• Panasonic: turn on network control ("Command control" / "NETWORK CONTROL") in the projector's network menu. Both protected (password) and unprotected modes work.
• Input, shutter and mute while the projector is off or warming up fail as retryable, so core tries again. Projector warnings and alarms show the device as degraded.

#Media servers

All media server modules report tangle.transport (play, pause, stop, seek, load) for a main timeline or playback, plus a module-specific capability for any timeline by name.

Setup notes:

• Watchout 6: allow control in Watchout (production: Preferences > Control; the display cluster always listens). Auxiliary timelines cannot be queried: their state is what Tangle last commanded.
• Watchout 7: load is not supported; load the show in Producer.
• Pandoras Box: the wire format was written without access to a real server. Check it on your Pandoras Box before using it in a show. Positions are converted to frames with the fps setting.
• Hive: the HTTP endpoints are an assumption made without Hive's API reference. Check them on a player before use.
• BrightSign: the player must run the Tangle player script. Run the sd-card configurator: it builds autorun.brs (the script) and tangle-settings.json (this player's port, playlist, volume and network) from the device's settings. Copy both to the root of the SD card next to the media files and start the player. With networkMode: static, the script sets the address at boot; use it as host. Discovery finds players running the script.
• Modulo Kinetic: add a "Web socket server" device in Kinetic Designer and use its port.
• Resolume: turn on the webserver (Preferences > Webserver, port 8080) and OSC input (Preferences > OSC, port 7000).
• VYV Photon: Photon does not report the timeline position; positionMs is the last position sought to.
• Pixera: in Settings > API, enable the TCP API with the JSON/TCP protocol, port 1400.

#Game engines

Each game event becomes a device event game.<name> that automations can react to. See Engine plugins for setting up each engine.

#Players

Setup notes:

• VLC: turn on the web interface (Preferences > All > Interface > Main interfaces: Web, with a Lua HTTP password), or run the setup assistant, which gives the command line for macOS, Windows and Linux. The preview assistant starts VLC with a small Motion JPEG stream on previewPort (8081), which a Camera control can show; it costs some CPU on the VLC computer.
• Q-SYS players: each player component needs Script Access set to External or All in Designer. seek is not available: the Audio Player has no control for it.
• Reaper: in Preferences > Control/OSC/web, add an OSC (Open Sound Control) surface with pattern config Default: Device IP is the Tangle computer, Device port is feedbackPort (9000), Local listen port is oscPort (8000); tick "Allow binding messages". Adding the Web browser interface (port 8080, set webPort: 8080) is recommended: the module then sees a Reaper that quit as offline and lists markers and regions as cues. Reaper actions run only if their ids are listed in allowedActions.

#Computer control

Computer modules only run named commands written in the device's settings, never free text from a dashboard or cue. Each command can declare typed parameters (string, number, integer, boolean, enum), which are checked before anything is sent and are never pasted into the script.

Setup notes:

• Wake-on-LAN: turn on Wake-on-LAN in the computer's BIOS/UEFI and network card settings (Windows: Device Manager > network card > "Wake on Magic Packet"; macOS: "Wake for network access"; Linux: ethtool -s eth0 wol g). Use the subnet's broadcast address when the computer is on another interface; routers usually do not forward broadcasts. Without checkHost the module cannot tell whether the computer is up. An asleep computer shows as degraded (not offline) so it can still receive the wake action. Turning a computer off is done with the SSH or PowerShell module.
• SSH: Windows needs the built-in OpenSSH Server feature. With sudo: true, give the account a sudoers rule without password for exactly the power commands. Host keys are trusted on first use by default and stored in the module's data folder; after reinstalling a computer, delete its entry or set hostKey. Requires Python 3.11+ and installs asyncssh in the module's environment.
• PowerShell Remoting: run the enable-remoting configurator. It generates a script for that PC (enable remoting, firewall rules, LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy for local administrator accounts, Basic authentication when auth: basic, and a self-signed HTTPS listener when https: true). Run it in Windows PowerShell as administrator on the PC. The account must be an administrator. Over plain HTTP use ntlm; use basic with https only. Requires Python 3.11+ and installs pywinrm; for Kerberos (domain PCs) install pywinrm[kerberos], which needs the system Kerberos libraries on macOS and Linux.
• PsExec: only runs on a Windows core node with PsExec installed; on macOS or Linux the device shows error. In a cluster, pin the device to a Windows node with node (see Devices). The password is passed on PsExec's command line, so other users of that machine can see it in the process list: run the core under its own account, or leave username empty to use the core's own Windows account.
• tangle.power on fails on the SSH, PowerShell and PsExec modules with a hint to use misc.wol.computer.

#I/O

Setup notes:

• Digital input changes send an input.changed device event for automations.
• ADAM: set aiRange and aoRange to the ranges configured in Advantech's utility (default 0 to 10 V). Raw Modbus writes are refused unless allowRawWrites is on.
• Kissbox I/O: the UDP wire format is provisional and has not been matched to Kissbox's protocol documentation. It will not talk to a real Kissbox until that is done.

#Audio DSP

Only the controls listed in the settings can be changed from Tangle. Named controls come from Designer's Named Controls pane; component controls need the component's Script Access set to External or All. tangle.level maps 0..1 linearly onto the gain's min..max dB (default -60..0), which is not the fader taper Q-SYS shows. A Core in Standby or Idle shows as degraded.

The other DSP modules work the same way: list the controls you want in controls, and pick the one that tangle.level and tangle.mute drive with levelControl and muteControl.

#Lighting

The DMX modules are native and share one DMX engine (tangle-dmx): lighting devices, outputs and inputs on the same Tangle universe work together.

A lighting device sends nothing by itself: add an output (Art-Net, sACN or USB) on the same Tangle universe. Several outputs may send the same universe.

#Lighting device profiles

A lighting device profile says what each channel of a model means, per mode. Built-in profiles:

The generic profiles are not real products: check the channel order against the device's manual.

For any other model, download its definition from open-fixture-library.org (the "OFL JSON" export, one file per model). Put it in the module's profiles folder and set profile to the file name without .json, or give an absolute path in profile. mode picks a mode by name or short name (8ch); the default is the first mode. Matrix models (pixel templates) are refused.

Lighting devices accept tangle.level.set (0 to 1), light.color.set (#rrggbb, a colour name, or red/green/blue/white/amber/uv), light.position.set (pan, tilt) and light.channel.set (any channel by number or name, 0 to 255). Every action takes fadeMs.

How the patch and merge work:

• Patch. A device reserves address to address + channels - 1 of its universe. A device that overlaps another gets status error naming the channels and the other device, and is not retried until you change its address.
• Merge. Every source (each light, raw channels, desk input with merge, take playback) is merged per channel. Intensity channels are HTP (highest wins); other patched channels such as pan, tilt and wheels are LTP (last change wins). On devices without a dimmer channel, tangle.level scales the colour.
• A light is online once patched, whether or not an output sends its universe yet.

#Recording a lighting sequence

A misc.dmx.lighting device with role: recorder records one universe into named takes and plays them back:

• recordSource: output records what Tangle sends; recordSource: input records what a lighting desk sends to an Art-Net or sACN input device on the same universe.
• Actions: dmx.recorder.record (take), stop, play (take, offsetMs, loop), select, list, delete. A timeline cue or a dashboard button can start recording or playback.
• Playback merges with live control (HTP/LTP as above). When a take ends, its last look holds until stop.
• Takes are stored as files in the DMX process's data folder, keeping only the channels that change.

Note: Recording into a DMX track on a timeline is not available yet. Use the recorder's takes and start them from cues.

#Output status and setup

• Art-Net: a node never acknowledges DMX, so the module checks it with ArtPoll. With nodeCheck: auto, a unicast node that answers is online and goes timeout when it stops answering; a node that never answers stays online with a note that its status is not checked. On macOS, broadcasts to 255.255.255.255 only go out on the primary interface; a directed broadcast (such as 2.255.255.255) is more reliable.
• sACN: receivers never answer, so the device is online with a note saying where it sends, and offline only when the network refuses to send.
• USB DMX: find the port name with ls /dev/tty.* on macOS or in Device Manager on Windows (/dev/ttyUSB0 style on Linux). Some interfaces need the FTDI driver on macOS. An unplugged interface goes offline and comes back when plugged in again. Open DMX interfaces depend on the computer's timing; use 30 Hz if a receiver flickers. When the interface is plugged into one cluster node, set the device's node.
• Edition: the number of DMX universes (distinct universe values) follows your edition: Lite allows 2. See Licensing.

#Lighting consoles

The grandMA, Eos and MagicQ modules only run the commands written in the settings and a few templates with checked parameters. Free text commands are refused unless allowRaw is on.

Setup notes:

• grandMA2: Setup > Console > Global Settings: enable Telnet "Login Enabled". Create a user for Tangle with the rights it needs, or use administrator.
• grandMA3: Menu > In & Out > OSC: add a line with Destination IP = the Tangle computer, Port = localPort (8001), the console's receive port = port (8000), Prefix = prefix, and turn on Receive, Receive Command, Send and Send Command. Enable input and output. With heartbeat on, a console that is off or not echoing shows as timeout, never offline (UDP cannot tell the difference).

#Show control

Cue numbers, lists and paths are digits and dots (12.5). Received commands become msc.received device events. The midi-ports setup step lists the MIDI ports.

#Displays

More projectors: epson.escvp.projector (ESC/VP21 over ESC/VP.net TCP 3629 or RS-232), sony.adcp.projector (ADCP, TCP 53595 with or without the password challenge, or RS-232) and sharp.nec.projector (NEC binary commands, TCP 7142 or RS-232) give power with warm-up and cool-down, input, picture mute, freeze, light hours and errors. Like PJLink, their power actions report "warming up" until the projector is on, so an automation step can wait for it.

#Video switchers, routers and AV over IP

Setup notes:

• ATEM: the protocol was written after the open-source atem-connection library, not from Blackmagic documentation.
• Dante: uses the reverse-engineered control protocol documented by the netaudio project. Check it with your devices before relying on it in a show.

#Cameras

The modules control the camera; the picture comes from the camera's own MJPEG, snapshot or HLS output, set in streamUrl or snapshotUrl for the dashboard Camera control. Panasonic preset numbers start at 1 in Tangle (preset 1 is the camera's code 00).

#Conference rooms and presentation

#Microphones and amplifiers

#Power

#Building and network

For a Modbus device you use often, make a driver with named registers in the device creator instead of listing points on every device.

#Generic devices

When no module exists for a device, use one of these and write its commands in the device settings, or make a driver in the device creator.

commands are named, with placeholders for parameters; bindings map standard capabilities (power, mute, input, level, preset) to commands; feedback rules read answers into state.

#Listeners and libraries

Two modules are not devices: