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Wireless tally light for use with ATEM switchers. Connects over WiFi using only a D1 mini board (ESP8266 WiFi module) and a RGB LED. Should easily be convertable to use with regular Arduino boards and an ESP2866 module, by changeing the include statements and a few other things (however, this is not tested).
DIY guide is available here.
Once set up, it will automatically connect to an ATEM swithcer over WiFi and function as a tally light.
Once the program is uploaded to the ESP8266 the setup is done with a webpage it serves over WiFi where you are able to see status details, and perform the basic setup. Depending on if it's connecting to a known network or not it will serve the webpage on it's IP address, or on 192.168.4.1 (default) over a softAP (access point) named "Tally light setup". (On first run you might run into issues with earlier WiFi settings if it connects to a known WiFi, as it can set an invalid static IP-address. To avoid this, select "Sketch + WiFi Settings" in Tools -> Erase Flash: "setting" -> ... when uploading the program, which will reset the WiFi settings).
Once set up with the correct tallyNO and IP-addresses, it should automatically connect to the swithcer over WiFi, and start working as a tally light. (IMPORTANT - Swtitcher and tally light must be connected to the same network!)
To get around ATEM switchers' connection limit of 5-8, v2.0 introduced Tally Server functionality. This makes the system only require one connection from the switcher. An example setup is shown in the diagram below. As this brings a lot of flexibility with how to connect the units, bear in mind that the ESP8266 isn't that powerful, and is limited to 5 clients each. (In some cases 5 might even be to many).
The different states of connection is signalled with LED colors.
| Color | Description |
|---|---|
| BLUE | Connecting to WiFi |
| WHITE | Unable to connect to WiFi - serves softAP "Tally light setup", while still trying to connect. |
| PINK | Connecting to ATEM Swithcher. (Connected to WiFi) |
| RED | Tally program |
| GREEN | Tally preview |
| OFF | Tally neither live or preview (or no power...) |
By default the tally light should be set up to work as a normal tally light would in a professional enviroment. However, as I in my personal use case needed it to work a bit differently, I added the following modes of oparation for convenience.
| Mode | Description |
|---|---|
| Normal | As describen in the above table. |
| Preview stay on | Tally will be green whenever not in program |
| Program only | Tally will be off whenever not in program |
See details at ESP8266 on how to setup and use ESP8266 modules like a regular Arduino board. They have links for further documentation as well.
Based on ATEM libraries for Arduino by SKAARHOJ, available at Git repo: SKAARHOJ-Open-Engineering
Inspired by ATEM_Wireless_Tally_Light (However, this works completely different)