What is the Third Party Interface (TPI)?

Third Party Interface (TPI) is a upgrade feature that needs to be purchased on a per controller basis. With this feature enabled third party devices can send commands to the zencontrol application/room controllers via UDP and RS485 serial.

There are two versions of the TPI with separate licenses. There is the original TPI, and the new TPI Advanced which has fewer limitations and more features for advanced integrations. The ability to use the TPI over RS485 serial requires an additional license and Control4 SDDP integration also requires an additional license.

Please read How do I purchase control system upgrades to enable these features. Once a feature is enabled, you can enable/disable the interface on the Grid View page under the Add-ons tab.

The TPI supports the ability to override the current lighting settings. Integrators can use the legacy TPI to issue light level commands such as:

• Change the light level of a group
• Recall scenes
• Query current DALI levels, last heard scenes and current scenes.
• Set inhibit on a target, preventing sensors from changing the target state for a desired period of time.

TPI Advanced supports everything the original TPI supports, and contains additional such features as:

• Specify a "sequence number" which helps resolve any out-of-order reply issues.
• DALI and DMX colour control, and custom fade lengths.
• Various events broadcast over Multicast. This allows systems to be notified on events rather than having to poll for events. (Not enabled by default)
• Querying of metadata such as labels, scenes, groups and control gear metadata.

Integrators can use the attached reference document for UDP communications. We have also included the Zen Command Generator to generate strings that can be used to send UDP commands to controllers on the network. Please note that this utility is only for the original TPI and does not support TPI Advanced.