Looking for a general serial control plugin

Posted on
Wed Jan 03, 2018 10:07 am
jltnol offline
Posts: 989
Joined: Oct 15, 2013

Looking for a general serial control plugin

So Santa brought me a new LG TV for Christmas, and as far as I can tell, does not have any type of IP control, but does have serial control.

I've got a USB to Serial cable, so think I've got the physical connection done correctly, but am looking for some kind of general serial control plugin so I can test / try / the serial commands provided by LG. I realize this may be a lot harder than I'm thinking... but I'm ready to try to slog thru to see if I can get this to work..' Not really looking for any feedback from the TV, just want to turn it off via Indigo.

Posted on
Thu Jan 04, 2018 9:03 am
Swancoat offline
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Location: Houston

Re: Looking for a general serial control plugin

If you're just looking to test serial commands, I use an app called CoolTerm, which is a fairly Mac-Friendly way to just interact with the serial port for testing stuff.

If you want to do it from the Indigo environment, I recall a plugin called Simple Serial (I think...) Can't remember who the author was, but a search should turn it up. I think it's probably built for that kind of use case.

http://nerdhome.jimdo.com

Posted on
Thu Jan 04, 2018 1:50 pm
jay (support) offline
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Re: Looking for a general serial control plugin

Here's where the description of the Simple Serial plugin is - though I'm not sure if it's available any more.

I'd recommend taking Swancoat's suggestion and use a terminal emulator to play around with it. Once you've got a handle on what you need, then you can write Python scripts (Indigo includes the PySerial library for talking to serial ports) to do what you need.

You should also look to see if there's a Python library that talks to those TVs (searching Github is a great start).

Jay (Indigo Support)
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Posted on
Thu Jan 04, 2018 2:33 pm
Different Computers offline
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Re: Looking for a general serial control plugin

Going a different route, there's always either Global Cache or Harmony Hub.

SmartThings refugee, so happy to be on Indigo. Monterey on a base M1 Mini w/Harmony Hub, Hue, DomoPad, Dynamic URL, Device Extensions, HomeKitLink, Grafana, Plex, uniFAP, Fantastic Weather, Nanoleaf, LED Simple Effects, Bond Home, Camect.

Posted on
Thu Jan 04, 2018 2:50 pm
forestfield offline
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Location: West Sussex

Re: Looking for a general serial control plugin

I control my meridian kit with a serial usb cable from indigo; but not directly.

The indigo server and the meridian bits are at opposite ends of the house, so I use the 'cynical network' plugin to send the appropriate commands to a TCP port on a raspberry pi. These arei intercepted by 'socat' (a linux utility) and converted to serial commands. It's a 2 way communication path, so I can also read the results from sending a command. Thus I don't need a serial plugin, and I don't need to have the indigo server near the meridian kit.

I can provide more details if anyone is interested.
-- Paul --

Posted on
Thu Jan 04, 2018 5:33 pm
berkinet offline
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Location: Berkeley, CA, USA & Mougins, France

Re: Looking for a general serial control plugin

<irony>Well, if you have a time machine, or a really old copy of Indigo, you could try Serial-Brigde. Looking back, that was really the start of Indigo breaking out of the X10 box. Good ideas never die.</irony>

On a more helpful note, if you know how to map serial devices to IP sockets (there are a lot of ways) you could use Perry’s Cynical Network plugin. But, as Jay and others have noted, first you need to find or figure out the command set.

Posted on
Thu Jan 04, 2018 5:43 pm
Different Computers offline
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Re: Looking for a general serial control plugin


SmartThings refugee, so happy to be on Indigo. Monterey on a base M1 Mini w/Harmony Hub, Hue, DomoPad, Dynamic URL, Device Extensions, HomeKitLink, Grafana, Plex, uniFAP, Fantastic Weather, Nanoleaf, LED Simple Effects, Bond Home, Camect.

Posted on
Sun Jan 07, 2018 12:00 pm
jltnol offline
Posts: 989
Joined: Oct 15, 2013

Re: Looking for a general serial control plugin

Hey Folks
Thanks for. the tips.. When I get a few hours, I'm going to see what I can get done. My list is pretty small, but I'm also realizing that without some kind of feedback from the TV, this might be Mission Impossible. Really what I'm looking for is to turn the TV off with a bunch of other stuff... but unless there is a dedicated OFF command(as opposed to a Toggle Command), this may be wasted effort..

But I'm going to plow ahead and see what happens..

Thanks again,

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