Control Extron Crosspoint switcher with a Touchscreen! (iPad, Android, etc.)

Dochartaigh

Edo Express Delivery Guy
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Mar 25, 2017
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For almost two years now I've been trying to figure out a way to control my Extron Crosspoint matrix switcher through a touchscreen device of some type. It's not that it's hard to load a preset or anything (which is simply pressing "Preset + Preset Number + Enter" on the control panel buttons), but it's that I've always liked nice looking GUI's (graphical user interfaces) and when you have a switcher which was well over $30,000 about 15 years ago, it would be nice to control it with something similarly impressive.

Earlier this week (after giving up on connecting it through Ethernet for the 3rd or 4th time) I was finally able to connect to my Extron Crosspoint 450 Plus 3232 HVA switcher using the same USB to Serial programmer cable I use to program my TVOne Corio2 240p downscalers. I loaded up the Extron Crosspoint Windows software and saw how really clunky that software was, and that just wasn't going to cut it:

Screenshot of Extron Windows software
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Through the software however I was able to turn on DCHP so I could finally connect to it through the built-in web interface which is a little more user friendly:

Screenshot of Extron web interface inputs/outputs
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Screenshot of Extron Presets web interface
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At that point I stole the HTML code from the Extron Preset control webpage, and built a HTML webpage with nice per-console graphics (based off the label artwork I made for the physical back-lit buttons of the Crosspoint), and now you can click on each console's logo and it'll load that preset (the presets I already manually setup on the Crosspoint, although you can make those through the software or web interface as well I believe).

Screenshot of NEW web interface for switching Presets
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The Extron Crosspoint houses all the HTML files and acts as a server of sorts for those. The Crosspoint does need to be hard-wired/connected via Ethernet cable to the same network your tablet or phone is connected to (i.e. your home network). You can do this by running an Ethernet cable to it from your router, or you can even link a laptop to share it's internet connection with another device, or use a wireless ethernet dongle or one of those WiFi range extenders with Ethernet port or whatnot. I did need a USB to Serial programmer cable to be able to turn on HDCP (which was the only way I could connect to it via Ethernet and my netork).

So that's about it. Next steps are to tweak the webpage I made so it fills the screen properly (currently have to zoom manually a little bit), see if there's a web browser for my iPad 2 (might use an ancient Android Nexus 7 I have as well) which can go full-screen without the navigation bar on top, and I want to get a flexible arm mount for the tablet so I can mount it to my desk so it's secure and easier to use for switching.

I'll post the HTML and art files when I get a second if anybody wants to use them.
 
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