Why do we use “Ethernet” for our LED controllers?

Clients often ask me this question. I understand this may be a little confusing, but it has a good reason. 8 years ago, before we even started with the production of our own LED controllers, we first looked for one on market. What we found was, honestly, just useless crap. Most LED controllers at that time were for analog RGB strips only. You could use only several DMX 512 channels, at most few art-net universes, and that was it!

But, there was a bigger problem with existing LED controllers. Would you like to guess? Too many wires! It was around that time we started to build TV studios and we implemented a simple, yet clever rule: “Less cables = Less issues”.  We couldn’t achieve that with existing models, so we decided to manufacture our own – LED Ethernet Controller 1 (currently we release v. 3.2)

Ethernet cable was cheaper (then XLR connectors cable) and could handle large data packets over a single wire. Our first LED controller model was able to control up to 4000 individual RGB pixels on 4 outputs! Almost perfect solution was still missing something though – a LED software. One that would be able to generate color effects and send them through LED controller to LED pixels. So, we started to work on LED Strip Studio Software.

Nowadays, we build complex systems, with software generated effects and LED controllers connected through networks switches. The largest installation in terms of individual pixels had 270 000 pieces! We prefer versatility against limitations, so use of Art-Net software/hardware with our systems is no problem.

This is, in short, a story of how we started to use “Ethernet” while naming our devices. Do you have any other question, on which you like to know an answer? Contact us!