ok, so I just finished reading all 35 pages on these, and had a couple of ideas (RJ you have an e-mail) wondered what other users thought. A few were briefly discussed but I wanted to throw it our there to see if anyone would bite.
What about adding "phantom" addresses that would allow you to group smart stings together under a single channel? For instance, you could "group" all the strings on your mega tree so that a single command sent to a single channel would control every pixel on every string used on the mega? You could put everything on the roof together into a group, all your mini trees into a group, all your arches into a group, etc. This would allow elements that are often used together to be more easily programmed without completely giving up the individual pixel control. i.e. if you had say 6 "groups" of elements, you could have as little as 18 channels to control the entire show but still utilize individual channels when you want them.
Second, it was briefly mentioned that the chips could be programmed with their own routines. What if every smart string came pre-loaded with, say, 12 different pre-programmed effects. Think a cycling color fade over 30 seconds or something. Very similar to the "multi function controllers" on traditional strings. when no data stream is sent, the smart strings revert to their pre-programmed effect. so when my show isn't running I could still have the smart strings doing their thing, cycling through colors, twinkling individual pixels like falling snow, or whatever all in unison? When the show starts they respond to the pixel-net command being sent.
Just thought I would throw these out there to see if there was any interest, trying to compare features on all the technology out there. can't wait to see what else comes out in the next 12 months.
