Extron Network/LAN Serial protocol

Feature Requests
1

Hey Guys,

I think it would be interesting to look into this integration, because it would be interesting to control Extron switchers with HA.

Here is the deal :

  • Some extron switchers have an ethernet port so that you can control them via a web interface, everything talks on the LAN unencrypted, you can just pass a url with specific arguments to change a channel (as the documentation suggests), unfortunately I don’t own one of these, yet.

  • Others don’t, but they have RS-232 ports that can be controled via Extron’s Network to serial adapters (IPL-T S2, S4 or S6) which work similarly : https://media.extron.com/public/download/files/brochure/iplt_s1_s2_s4_s6_series0811-bro.pdf

I have successflully conducted some testing with the second option via a web browser by formatting the queries according to the user manuals of all the devices I own :

I am no developper, but I can provide the small amount of research I’ve done, to anybody who would be willing to develop this into an integration for HA or at least look into it :slight_smile:

2

If it’s just a URL with specific arguments, I think you may be able to use command line switch to control them via Home Assistant

3

I had no idea this could handle urls, I’ll look into it, thanks for the information.

4

I would strongly suggest to use the telnet system to control Extron devices with Ethernet (lot more reliable and efficient than web crawling !!). All the more Extron uses same protocol on all devices and they have been very consistant through years with it (based on my experience, I control these devices since around 20 years :smiley:

5

Not to necrobump, but I’d be interested in helping develop a plugin for this.

I’ve got a MAV Plus 88AV that would benefit greatly from this.

If you could point to the research you’ve got, that’d be great!

6

Did anything happen with and Extron plugin? I hae an Exton DTP matrix I would like to control and am struggling to get it working.

7

Hey @zombielinux and @vidtech : you can look into the telnet integration to pilot extron devices, unfortunately I’ve lost all the URL examples I had in a computer crash. but, the ysnatx is not that complicated, you just have to read the manual of you devices carefully.

I don’t have time for now to try look all this up, but I’ll post it here if I look into it in the future.

8

@WLCD @vidtech

I noticed the telnet option, but didn’t think that was a particularly elegant solution (for @WLCD’s issue above)

So I wrote GitHub - zombielinux/pyextron: Telnet control of Extron matrix switchers. I’ve not written the integration for it yet.

Its basically the same as the synchronous version of this library GitHub - rsnodgrass/pyxantech: Python RS232 API for Monoprice/Xantech/Dayton Audio multi-zone amps which DOES have an integration, but only for the async version.

I haven’t got around to writing that part yet, but help would be appreciated.

Feel free to add to the repo, I’d love to support more users than just what I’ve got kicking around in my rack.

9

I’m not much of a developer, but I’d like to help, what can i do ?

10

See if the example.py works for your model, and if it doesn’t let me know what doesn’t work.

So far, it just switches audio and video together to an arbitrary random mapping. I think thats the assumed default use case right now.

11

Have you been able to work on the integration ? I would be interested to test it for IP communication with Extron devices and would also reuse it as squeleton for other similar devices :slight_smile:

12

I honestly haven’t. I need to set up a proper homeassistant development environment. That coupled with a few life things and its slowly on the back burner.

If I’m entirely honest, I lifted most of the work from the pyxantech python library with the intention of making the required modifications to the accompanying integration to speed development. I just haven’t got there yet.

13

Thanks for the update and I understand you :wink: Just keep thread updated here please if you get a chance to get some time to work on it :smiley: