Genelec Smart IP Drivers for PIXILAB Blocks

Two drivers are available for the Genelec Smart IP API v1 (revision 0.8.4). They can be used independently or together, depending on the required functionality.

The legacy single-speaker driver, driver-archive/GenelecSmartIP (1.01), was renamed to GenelecSmartIPUnicast in version 2.0.0. Do not run both versions simultaneously.

Multicast requires speaker firmware 1.3.25 or later. Testing has been performed on a Genelec 4420 running firmware 1.4.9.

Source files

• script/driver/GenelecSmartIPUnicast.ts
• script/driver/GenelecSmartIPMulticast.ts

If this document conflicts with the source code, the header comments in the respective driver files take precedence.

• Unicast: Use for individual speaker control and whenever you need feedback about a speaker's state, including power, level, mute, profile, inputs and zone.
• Multicast: Use to control an entire group with a single datagram per command. For example, a single volume slider can control every speaker in a room. Multicast does not provide feedback.
• Both together: Configure one Unicast device per speaker and one Multicast device per group. Each Unicast device reads its speaker's multicast group address and can follow Multicast devices addressing that group. Group commands for volume, mute and profiles are reflected immediately in the corresponding Unicast properties and then confirmed by reading the speaker.

Create a TCP Network Device with the following settings:

• Address: Speaker IP address
• Port: 9000

The driver accepts authentication credentials and additional settings through the driver options.

The simplest configuration is the username and password:

admin:admin

Alternatively, use JSON:

{
  "auth": "admin:admin",
  "pollSec": 30,
  "followMulticast": true
}

Available options:

Important: Set the speaker's sleep delay to 0 in Smart IP Manager. ISS (Intelligent Signal Sensing) auto-sleep is not supported.

The driver exposes two volume properties for different use cases:

• level: Exact volume in dB, suitable for text readouts and tasks.
• volumeFader: Normalized value from 0 to 1, suitable for sliders and other graphical controls.

The fader follows this logarithmic curve:

dB = 60 * log10(volumeFader)

• The speaker is authoritative. Settings are read at startup and polled periodically. Changes made elsewhere, including in Smart IP Manager or through multicast, become visible within one polling interval.
• Commands are rate-limited. Commands are sent one at a time, with a minimum interval of 100 ms. If a newer value arrives before a pending command is sent, it replaces the pending value. This prevents a dragged slider from flooding the speaker, which has a limit of four connections.
• Properties update immediately. When a property is changed, its value updates immediately. If the speaker rejects the command, the property reverts to its last known value.
• Sleeping speakers. When the speaker is in standby or ISS sleep, audio-related requests return HTTP 503. The driver marks the speaker as inactive rather than disconnected. Commands sent while the speaker is in standby are lost and are not automatically applied when it wakes.
• Following multicast. Volume, mute and profile commands sent through a group device are reflected immediately in the Unicast properties. After the group has been quiet for 0.5 seconds, the driver performs one read to confirm the resulting state. Power commands are not mirrored because BOOT restarts the speaker; power state is read instead. Newly discovered group devices are found during the next read.

Create a UDP Network Device with the following settings:

• Address: The group's multicast IP address, in the range 224.0.0.0 to 239.255.255.255.
• Port: The group's multicast port.
• Configuration: Use one device per multicast group.

The multicast IP and port are configured in Smart IP Manager.

They can be retrieved from the following sources:

• volIp and volPort in GET /public/v1/network/ipv4 on any speaker in the group.
• mcastport in the speaker's mDNS record (_smart_ip._tcp).

The default port is 49152, as used in the protocol specification's example. However, the specification's mDNS example uses 49153 as the zone ID, so verify the actual multicast port rather than assuming the default.

A speaker configured with volIp set to 0.0.0.0 ignores multicast commands.

• No feedback. Properties reflect the last values sent, not confirmed speaker states. A speaker that is offline or rebooting when a command is sent may miss it. Set the property again to resend the command. Every property set sends a command, even if the value has not changed.
• Command pacing. Each command is sent as one UDP datagram in the format

  {"mcast":{"ver":1,<name>:<value>}}

  . There is a minimum interval of 100 ms between datagrams. Updates to the same command received during this interval are merged, retaining the latest value. The constructor does not send any commands.

• Disabled devices. No commands are sent, and property sets are ignored while the device is disabled.
• Power control. STANDBY is the only power state that multicast can set reliably. The state: ACTIVE command is ignored, as observed on a Genelec 4420 running firmware 1.4.9. Waking a group without rebooting therefore requires Unicast commands, sent to each speaker individually. Power commands do not change mute.
• Startup profiles. Speakers without a corresponding Unicast device in the group can still recall the selected profile, but their startup profile remains unchanged.
• Profile contents. Profiles contain acoustic and input settings, not volume. Profiles are stored and managed through Smart IP Manager.

The following changes apply when migrating from the old GenelecSmartIP driver to GenelecSmartIPUnicast 2.0.0.

• The old 0-1 volume property, which used a linear mapping over -200 to 0 dB, has been replaced by level and volumeFader. Rebind all volume sliders to volumeFader.
• profile no longer automatically changes the startup profile. Use startupProfile when that is the intended behaviour.
• Setting active = true no longer unmutes the speaker.
• Fixed issues involving speakers offline at startup, stale values dropping matching commands, AoIP 01/02 input states not being read back, overlapping requests, rejected values still being displayed, and profile values above 5 incorrectly recalling profile 5.
• Added boot, startupProfile, group, polling and multicast following.