What is the status of Architecture for Control Networks (ACN)?
LAY: ACN, or ANSI E1.17 – 2006, Entertainment Technology—Architecture for Control Networks, as it is officially known—was approved as an ANSI standard on October 19, 2006. It is without a doubt the most complicated project that the ESTA Technical Standards Program has undertaken so far. A great deal of effort was expended by the ACN task group to ensure that ACN was future-proofed as a control protocol, and it does so much more than just communicate dimmer levels. It is a plug and play protocol that supports network discovery and provides manufacturer interoperability. And not just for lighting networks. ESTA is particularly pleased that after a great deal of technical research, Shure Audio has decided to implement ACN throughout their product line. ACN is the Swiss Army Knife of entertainment network protocols. HIGGINS: ACN hopes to replicate the success of DMX in terms of how it edged out several non-standard, proprietary control protocols in the 1980s and created a level playing fie
