Devices

A device is anything Lightpath can send commands to: a projector, an LED controller, a media server, a smart relay, an OSC-speaking console, a camera, an HTTP-controlled audio matrix. Devices are managed under Configure → Devices in the app — each one has a name, one or more network addresses, and a list of named controls you wire up once and then fire from the rest of Lightpath.

Device types

Lightpath ships with a device type for each common AV protocol. Pick the one that matches the protocol your hardware speaks.

HTTP REST

For anything with a REST API. Generic and flexible. You configure the host, port, and authentication on the device's Config tab, then add controls — each control specifies its own endpoint, method, and body.

Use this for: custom hardware, niche AV software, anything with a documented REST API.

OSC

Open Sound Control over UDP. The protocol of lighting consoles, audio gear, and most show-control rigs. Configure one or more addresses (each with its own port) on the General tab — one OSC device can fan out to several listeners.

Use this for: lighting boards (ETC, MA, Hog), audio rigs (QLab, Ableton Link), most show-control hardware.

PJLink

Industry-standard projector control. Power, shutter, audio-mute, input select. Lightpath speaks PJLink natively — when you add a PJLink device, the controls come pre-wired; you don't write endpoints. The projector also reports lamp hours, errors, model, and name, which show up in the device's status panel.

Use this for: any projector that supports PJLink (most professional projectors do).

Optoma (Serial)

Optoma projectors that don't do network control but have an RS-232 port — the D51i family (ML1050STi, ML750i) and relatives. Instead of a network address, each target is a serial port on the machine running Lightpath (e.g. COM3, or /dev/ttyUSB0), plus the projector's ID (00–99, set in the projector's own menu; 00 is fine in most cases — see below). To control several projectors together, add them as multiple targets on one device (not one device each) — but give each target its own serial adapter and COM port. These projectors can't share a single RS-232 bus: a shared bus was tried and the non-addressed units answer instead of staying silent, so their replies collide on the wire. Because every projector is on its own port, the ID can stay 00 on all of them. Add Target adds a blank target — pick the new projector's COM port from the list. Controls come pre-wired — power, AV-mute, audio-mute, source — and you can enable more (freeze, brightness, contrast, aspect ratio, orientation, auto keystone, OSD language, and an on-screen-menu Remote pad) from the Config tab. Status covers power, input, light-source hours, and temperature by default, with signal / resolution / refresh rate, fans, and versions available too.

Wiring: use the projector's Mini-USB → DB9 cable on the projector end and a USB-serial → DB9 adapter on the Lightpath machine. Both ends are DB9 male, so you'll need a female-female null-modem (crossover) adapter to join them: both the USB-serial adapter and the projector are wired as DTE (TX on pin 3), so a plain straight-through gender changer wires TX→TX and the projector never hears the host — you'll get no response at all. A null-modem adapter swaps TX/RX so the two can talk. Before it responds you must enable RS-232 on the projector: on the remote press Power → Down → Right → Menu, turn RS-232 control On, and set the baud rate to match Lightpath (9600 by default, or 19200).

Use this for: Optoma ML1050STi / ML750i and other D51i-series projectors controlled over RS-232 — including remotely, by running the serial link over a USB extender / KVM alongside the video.

Shelly

Shelly smart relays for power control. Generation 1 and Generation 2 both supported. You configure the channels on the device, and Lightpath generates a power toggle per channel automatically. Current draw (watts, volts, amps) and temperature show up as live status.

Use this for: anything you need to switch mains power on — signs, heaters, fixtures with no protocol of their own.

Advatek PixLite

PixLite LED controllers — pixel-mapping, Art-Net / sACN universe management. Lightpath ships with default controls for identify, test patterns, master intensity, live mode, and restart. Status reports temperature, FPS, CPU, voltage, port health, and current.

Advatek devices on the LAN can be discovered automatically via the network discovery panel in the device editor.

There's also a separate Advatek Configurator page in the app for managing port configs, templates, firmware updates, and CSV imports across all Advatek devices on the network. That's a fleet-management tool, not a device instance.

Use this for: Advatek PixLite-series LED controllers.

Modulo Pi

Modulo Player media server. Playlist control, cues, faders, and monitoring via the Spydog port. Default controls cover play, pause, next/previous, jump to cue, master and audio faders, media switch, save, and rescan. Live status includes play state, current cue, timecode, CPU, memory, temperature, and the media list.

Use this for: Modulo Player media servers.

AIDA NDI Cameras

AIDA Imaging IP / NDI cameras over the camera's HTTP JSON protocol. Lightpath logs in once with the camera's credentials, then exposes the full image control surface — mirror, flip, WDR, IR-cut, focus, exposure, white-balance, brightness, contrast, saturation, iris — plus system buttons for reboot, factory reset, and snapshot capture. Status surfaces device name, serial, version, NDI status, and stream state.

Use this for: AIDA NDI cameras.

Resolume

Resolume Arena / Avenue media server. Has its own bidirectional Content Mappings flow distinct from the regular content-binding mechanism — see the Resolume section below.

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Controls

A control is a named operation on a device — what Lightpath actually fires when an action, a content binding, a kiosk button, or an API call targets that device.

Each control is one of four types:

You add controls in the device editor. For PJLink, Shelly, Advatek, Modulo Pi, and AIDA, sensible default controls are created automatically when you add the device — for HTTP and OSC, you build the list yourself (the device editor lets you start from a category template to save typing).

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Content bindings

Available on HTTP and OSC devices only, and only on button controls. The other device types use their own mechanisms (PJLink and its peers come pre-wired to their protocols; Resolume has Content Mappings — see below).

In the device editor, scroll to any button control on an HTTP or OSC device and you'll see a Content Binding field with a Bind to content... button. Click it, pick a piece of Lightpath content (look, scene, or playlist), and that's it: from then on, whenever that content activates in Lightpath — from the controller, from a schedule, from a logic rule, from the API — the bound control fires automatically.

This is how you make external software follow Lightpath's state. A few examples:

• Bind an HTTP button that calls your projection mapping software's "Load Scene 3" endpoint to your "Performance" scene. When you activate Performance in Lightpath, the projection software loads Scene 3.
• Bind an OSC button that sends a cue trigger to your lighting board to your "Open" playlist. When Open starts, the board jumps to its matching cue.
• Bind an HTTP button to a "Closed" scene to call a webhook that notifies your back-office system.

You can change or clear a binding at any time without disturbing the control's normal behavior — the binding is purely an "also fire this when X activates" hook.

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Resolume content mappings

Resolume devices have a separate Content Mappings section in their editor that pairs Lightpath content with a Resolume column or clip. Each mapping fires outbound by default: when the content activates in Lightpath, the mapped column or clip fires in Resolume.

In the Resolume device editor, hit Add Mapping for each pairing. For each mapping:

• Toggle between Col (column) and Clip (layer + clip)
• Enter the column number, or the layer / clip pair
• Optionally set a Deck — the Resolume deck (bank) this mapping lives on. Leave it empty to fire on whatever deck is currently active.
• Pick one or more pieces of Lightpath content (looks, scenes, sequences, or playlists) via the content picker
• Optionally turn on Bidirectional
• Hit Test to fire the mapping to Resolume right now and confirm the wiring, without having to activate the content

Multiple content per mapping. A mapping can list several contents. When any of them activates, the mapped column or clip fires. This expresses "if any of these looks is showing, trigger this clip" with a single mapping.

Bidirectional (opt-in). Turn on Bidirectional to also run the reverse direction: firing that clip inside Resolume activates the mapped content in Lightpath, so the two behave like a single coordinated rig. Because the reverse has to name one specific content, Bidirectional is only available when a mapping has exactly one content selected — a many-to-one mapping is outbound-only. New mappings start outbound-only; turn Bidirectional on where you want the round trip.

Decks (banks). A column or clip position means something different on each deck, so a mapping can pin itself to a deck. When it does, activating the Lightpath content switches Resolume to that deck first, then fires the trigger (with a brief pause so the deck can load). In the reverse direction, the same column on deck 1 and deck 2 can map to different content: Lightpath follows Resolume's active deck to pick the right one. For the reverse direction to track deck changes, enable OSC output for deck selection in Resolume. Leave Deck empty on a mapping to keep the original deck-agnostic behavior.

Resolume devices also include a built-in master-opacity slider control.

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Status

Many devices can report state back to Lightpath. PJLink projectors surface lamp hours and errors; Shelly relays report current draw and temperature; Advatek controllers expose FPS, CPU, port health; Modulo Pi surfaces play state, current cue, timecode, and resource load; AIDA cameras report stream status.

Status shows up in the device's detail panel and feeds into:

• The Controller view, where toggle controls show their live ON / OFF state instead of just "fire and forget."
• The Logic page, where status values can be conditions for rules.
• The Alerts page, where status thresholds can fire notifications.

For PJLink, Shelly, Advatek, AIDA, and Modulo Pi, status works out of the box. For HTTP, you wire each status field explicitly on the control or interface config (the device editor shows a status section per control where supported). For OSC, status is push-based — configure addresses Lightpath should listen for.

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Lightpath as a controller

The whole point of the device system is making Lightpath drive other gear and software in sync with what's playing. The pattern:

1. Add a device for the target system (HTTP if it has a REST API, OSC if it speaks OSC, PJLink for projectors, etc.).
2. Configure the controls — endpoints and bodies for HTTP, addresses and arguments for OSC, or accept the protocol defaults for the typed device families.
3. Bind the right buttons to the right content via Content Binding (or Content Mappings for Resolume).

After that, the external system follows Lightpath's state without anyone having to manually coordinate. Schedule activates "Open" at sunset → projectors come up, media server loads its show file, relays power on, signage starts — all from one trigger.

See Changing content → Device content bindings for the upstream view of the same flow.

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Creating a device

Go to Configure → Devices and click + New Device. The creation flow is three steps:

1. Pick the type (HTTP, OSC, PJLink, Optoma Serial, Shelly, Advatek, Modulo Pi, AIDA, Resolume).
2. For HTTP and OSC only — pick a category (projector, media server, audio, lighting, etc.) that gives you a starter control set. You can add, remove, or rename controls afterwards.
3. Name the device, and if you're on a multi-machine install, pick which machine the device lives on.

After creation, the editor opens with two tabs:

• General — name, description, network addresses, online/offline monitoring behavior.
• Config — protocol-specific settings (authentication, ports, default headers, and the control list).

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Gotchas

• Offline devices fail loudly, not silently. Lightpath pings each device on a slow interval. Devices that are offline don't break the app — their controls just fail with an error in the logs. Action steps that target offline devices retry a few times before giving up.
• HTTP toggles need a status query to show live state. PJLink, Shelly, Advatek, AIDA, and Modulo Pi report toggle state via their protocols automatically. HTTP toggles will show as "unknown" in the UI until you wire a status query — the device editor has a status field per toggle for this.
• Only HTTP and OSC have per-control content bindings. PJLink, Shelly, Advatek, Modulo Pi, and AIDA fire via their protocol-native behavior; Resolume has its own Content Mappings (see above). If you need a listener somewhere on the network to react to Lightpath content changes generically, the outbound OSC broadcasts cover that without per-device configuration.
• Multiple addresses fire in parallel by default. If you've added several network addresses to one device, controls fire on all of them. Action steps can scope to a specific address if you need that.
• Use the Resolume device type for Resolume, not generic OSC. The Resolume type is what surfaces the Content Mappings UI and gives you the bidirectional sync. A generic OSC device pointed at Resolume will work for one-way control but loses the rest.
• Serial ports are local to the Lightpath server machine. An Optoma (Serial) device talks to a COM port on whichever machine runs the Lightpath server. To control a projector in another room, run the serial link there over a USB extender / KVM back to the server machine — not a second Lightpath install. Use Detect ports in the device editor to pick from the ports the server can actually see, and close any other program (TouchDesigner, a serial terminal) holding the port, or the projector will read as offline. The reverse is also true: while a projector is responding, Lightpath holds its COM port open, so other programs can't use it. To lend the port out without disabling the device, use Release Port on the device's Overview tab, then Reconnect when you're done.
• You can't see the projector's on-screen menu remotely. RS-232 carries commands, not video, and there's no command to read the OSD back. Status can tell you the projector's values (power, input, and — via the Signal / Resolution / Refresh Rate indicators — whether it's receiving a valid image), but not what the menu shows. Prefer the direct controls (which set a value outright) over the Remote pad's menu navigation, which is effectively blind unless someone is watching the screen.
• A few Optoma controls are marked "verify on hardware." Manual V/H keystone and image shift aren't in Optoma's published command table for this model, so they may or may not work on your unit. Use the Raw Command Console on the Config tab to test any command and see the projector's reply before relying on it. Auto keystone (on/off) is supported; per-degree keystone and auto-focus generally are not.
• Display Mode and Color Temperature controls are not offered — the commands crash the projector. On the ML1050STi (verified on hardware, controlled A/B testing), sending either set command — even though both are in Optoma's own command table — silently crashes the projector's RS-232 service, and after a Display Mode crash the entire projector goes down the moment the serial port is closed, requiring a power cycle mid-show. Lightpath therefore doesn't expose either control; their read-only status indicators remain available, and the Raw Command Console still exists if you want to test whether your unit's firmware is affected (send ~0020 1 — no reply means it just crashed; expect the full crash when you disconnect). Every other control is hardware-verified safe: power, source, audio mute, freeze, brightness, aspect ratio, projection, and the remote keys all acknowledge properly. AV mute may reply with a polite failure (F) on some inputs rather than acting — that's the projector declining, not a fault.
• Temperature and fan alerts come from Logic, not the device. Turn on the System Temp / Fan status indicators, then add a Logic rule with a device status condition (e.g. System Temp > 80) to fire an alert — handy for an unattended remote projector.