Device Interface

SPAD.neXt device interface V2

SPAD.neXt can communicate with external devices like e.g. Arduino/Teensy via a very simple line based communication.

Request and reply on both sides will follow this format:

<ChannelId>,<Param1>[,...,<ParamN>];

Thoughout the description of the device interface the following syntax will be used:

, is the seperator for parameters

; is the terminator of a command

/ is used as escape character

[ ... ] defines optional parameter

<Name> defines an actual value. This can be a number or a string (without quotes!)

Anything not enclosed in <> defines the exact string (without quotes!)

If , / ; are used within a parameter, they have to be escaped by a leading /. E.g. 15,Hello/, from Arduino;

For a SPAD.neXt compatible Arduino library import CmdMessenger (4.0) into the Arduino IDE (recommended) or clone the github repository at https://github.com/thijse/Arduino-CmdMessenger

There is also a customized version available at the SPAD.neXt GitHub (TODO LINK) which includes SPAD.neXt specific functions to make device programming more easy.

The same protocol can be used to communicate with SPAD.neXt e.g. via a Websocket (TODO WEBSOCKET) and procide e.g. a custom webinterfaced device

Channel-ID's

ChannelID	Purpose	Direction
0	General Commands	SPAD <--> Device
1	Data Commands	Device -> SPAD
2	SPAD.neXt Events	SPAD -> Device
3	Debug	Device -> SPAD
4	Simulation Event	Device -> SPAD
5	Data Channel	SPAD -> Device
6	Device LED updates	SPAD -> Device
7	Device Display updates	SPAD -> Device
8	Device Input	Device -> SPAD
9	(reserved for future use)
10 .. 49	Dedicated Data Channels	SPAD <-> Device

By default cmdMessenger is limited to a max of 50 channels to preserve device memory. You can change that by altering the line #define MAXCALLBACKS 50 in cmdMessenger.h, however this is not recommended.

For the specs of the Serial V1 protocol (still supported but deprecated) please see here.

All <tag> or <targettag> are limited to the charactersA-Z,0-9,_