Control Concepts

Control is built into the core of the Cognio platform. With an integrated control engine in every device, you can manage your system from anywhere, command third-party equipment, or integrate Cognio into third-party control systems.

Control Panel Groups

A Control Panel Group is a group of related control panels. Spaces that utilize touchscreens already start with a Control Panel Group in place. These give Cognio built-in knowledge of which panels belong together, which makes several tasks easier:

• Navigation. Cognio automatically recognizes panel groups, allowing you to add a universal navigation control (such as a radio button) that instantly generates seamless panel-to-panel navigation across the group.
• Live previews. Use the top tab to view live previews of every panel and manage them at a glance.
• Mapping controls. Assign a control to a parameter using its function settings, or simply drag a control directly from a signal flow design into a Control Panel Group for instant mapping.

Decoupling Look From Function

Cognio separates how a control looks from how it works. The Function tab defines what a control does, while the Design tab defines its appearance.

• Themes change the look of many controls at once. Cognio offers built-in Themes in the Design View, or you can create your own in the Custom Control Theme Manager without third-party design software, CSS, or code.
• Custom controls. Customize properties tailored for AV control systems, including cap styles, fill and cap colors, glow or drop shadow effects, borders, scale/up-down buttons, value readouts, and fonts.
• Reuse and sharing. Easily export, import, and reuse themes across different sites and projects. This allows designers to focus on visual styling while programmers build the functionality. To quickly update a panel, select all controls (Ctrl+A) and apply a theme to reskin it instantly.
• External assets. Anywhere there is color, an image can be used in its place. This allows for custom fader caps, backgrounds, icons, and other graphics.

Cognio Control of 3rd Party Devices

Cognio leverages Symetrix's extensive library of third-party drivers. Simply download them from the website and drag them into your design to install; existing drivers are also being ported to Cognio.

• Drivers are written in Lua for easy porting from Composer, with expanded scripting capabilities that go beyond the traditional driver model.
• A unified driver model supports both Dante and non-Dante devices for a single, consistent workflow.

Cognio can communicate with third-party devices over the common control protocols you would expect, including:

• Physical — GPIO, serial, and IR.
• IP-based — UDP, TCP, HTTP, and SSH.

Control Cognio from 3rd Party Control Systems

Cognio products can be controlled from external control systems using JSON-RPC over TCP.

Cognio OS enables direct JSON-RPC control across all devices including DSPs, endpoints, and touchscreens. The protocol is logical and consistent, making third-party programming fast and simple.