Wireless tally light for use with ATEM switchers. This is a modified version which provides the usage of WS2812 strips, a battery monitor (18650) and got some small improvements. Thanks to AronHetLam for his work.
Connects over WiFi using only a D1 mini board (ESP8266 WiFi module) and uses a WS2812 LED strip (Neopixel) to display the active and standby camera and itselfs status. This solution is not limited by the ATEM switchers' connection limit, making it possible to connect as many as you need.
Should easily be convertable to use with regular Arduino boards and an ESP8266 module, by changeing the include statements and a few other things (however, this is not tested).
DIY guide is available in the wiki.
Once set up, it will automatically connect to an ATEM switcher 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". For more details, see the guide int the wiki.
As Atem swithcers only allow for 5-8 simultanious clients (dependant on the model) v2.0 introduced Tally Server functionality. This makes the system only require one connection from the switcher, as the tally lights can retransmit data to other tallys. An example setup is shown in the diagram below, where arrows indicate the direction of tally data from swtcher/tally unit to client tally unit.
NOTE: 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 too many).
The different states of the device is shown using a status LED. It is designed so that always the last LED of a WS2812 is working as a dimmed status LED.
| Color | Description |
|---|---|
| YELLOW | Connecting to WiFi |
| WHITE | Unable to connect to WiFi - serves softAP "Tally light setup", while still trying to connect. |
| ORANGE | Connecting to ATEM Swithcher. (Connected to WiFi) |
| BLUE | Running and connected to WiFi and switchers |
All other LEDs of the WS2812 show the cam status. RED means camera is LIVE, GREEN means camera is PRESELECTED/STANDBY.
MODIFIED VERSION: I've just implemented, that after changing a standby cam (=green) to live, the standby camera will also be set on the live camera automatically by the Tally. Otherwise the ATEM (Mini) always interchanges Standby and Live camera, which can lead to confusion for the camera operator (was on live=red, after it goes to green, what?). You'll understand that feature while trying to Tallys together.
By default the tally light works 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 |
This is still changeable using the webinterface but currently untested in this version as it is not needed in my environment.
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)
Base by ATEM_Wireless_Tally_Light