New Pronto TSU9600 firmware

Philips Pronto TSU9600

Today i spent some time on my most expensive User Interface, the Philips Pronto TSU9600.

New firmware was released in December 2009 and also a new version of ProntoEdit Professional (PEP). The previous  major firmware update with a lot of new features was somewhere in July 2009, but due to lack of time i didn’t come very much further than updating the firm- and software and that was it. Now it was time to have a really good look at what this latest firmware and PEP version would bring. I must say, i’m impressed. It’s very clear that Philips has done a lot for making life of those who have to work with PEP a lot more pleasant

For example the use of PS (ProntoScript) Libraries. Where my old configuration had a lot of the same code on each activity page, it can now be put into 1 PS Library and added to the configuration at system level; no more redundant code!

The HTTP library is also a big improvement. The code i had to interface with my Domotica system was based on a TCPSocket, but when i went through the HTTP Library, i knew i was only 1 step away from implementing XML-RPC on the Pronto. One thing i missed was a way to do a HTTP POST, but that wasn’t that hard to create myself:

  // Convenience method to send text to an HTTP server
  //
  // Parameters:
  //   aUrl      HTTP URL
  //   aBody     the body
  //   aCallback Callback to invoke with text data upon success
  function postHTTP(aUrl, aBody, aCallback)
  {
    var req = new HttpRequest();
    req.postBody = aBody;
    req.open('POST', aUrl, true);
    req.setRequestHeader("Connection", "close");
    req.setRequestHeader("Accept-Charset",
                         "*; q=0.2, ISO-8859-15; q=0.9, ISO-8859-1,utf-8");
    req.onreadystatechange = function (aEvt) {
      if (req.readyState === READYSTATE.COMPLETED) {
        if (req.status === 200) {
          if (aCallback) {
            aCallback(req.responseText);
          }
        } else {
          System.print("HTTP status: " + req.status);
        }
      }
    };
    req.send(aBody);
  }

Next i created an additional Javascript library and some wrapper routines, which make it possible to have the Pronto ‘talk’ to the XML-RPC interface of my Domotica system:

  var httpLib = com.philips.HttpLibrary;
  var msg = new xmlrpc.XMLRPCMessage("SetDevice"); 

  msg.addParameter(Addr);
  msg.addParameter(aValue);
  httpLib.postHTTP('http://xx.xx.xx.xx', msg.xml(), aCallBack);

Now all my User Interfaces (website, ASUS TOP, Pronto) are using the same interface to my system. That really makes me very happy!

After some testing, today i did a complete remake of 2 of the most used activities. And this time it was fun!; i can assure you, it hasn’t always been that way in the past… Now all i have to do is add a ProntoScript one-liner to the Button Action:

XMLRPC_SetDevice("XELOS","MUTE");

This is the script for muting my TV; with no additional code except for the PS Libraries.

I’m very satisfied with my Pronto and how Philips keeps developing new features for it; and i haven’t even come to the features of the latest release yet; there’s still a whole lot more to explore!