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Hi @raugert, I’ve been thinking about the Bitfocus Companion integration and wanted to share some ideas with you. From what I’ve seen on GitHub, it doesn’t look like a Feedback API integration will be available anytime soon. Because of that, I’d like to suggest a workaround that I believe is the cleanest approach. My idea revolves entirely around the Satellite API. Companion allows you to create a button that essentially references another button, and it also mirrors feedback elements such as button color and text. With that in mind, all buttons needed in Panel Builder could be placed on a dedicated Companion page (e.g., "vMixPanelBuilder") and referenced there. Panel Builder could then use the Satellite API to integrate these buttons—including button color, text color, labels, etc.—cleanly and with proper live updates. There would even be a way to integrate rotary encoders as touch sliders. I’m not sure how much development effort this would require or whether this is something you’re interested in at all, but I wanted to share the idea anyway. I really like your tool, and since I still rely on Companion as well, I’m always looking for a more customizable and visually clear interface than what Companion currently offers. Best regards, Alex
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Hi Alex, I was reading your thoughts on using the Satellite API to get live feedback into a custom UI. It's a very clever workaround, as getting real-time state sync (colors, text, faders) out of vMix and into a clean dashboard is definitely a known challenge. Since you mentioned you are actively looking for a "visually clear interface" with proper live updates, I wanted to share a free tool I recently developed that might interest you. It’s called VRC (Video Recording Control Hub). Instead of relying on middleware, I built it natively on Windows (WinUI 3) to connect directly to the vMix TCP/XML API. Because of this, it inherently has instant live feedback for everything: input states, SRT routing, and active audio faders (including Volume, L/R channels, and Gain) without needing Companion as a bridge. Panel Builder is a legendary tool, but if you are looking for a highly dense, modern UI specifically designed to monitor and control vMix nodes with real-time feedback out of the box, you might find VRC useful for your workflow. You can check out the releases and UI screenshots here: https://github.com/Kotin-ak/VRC-ReleasesBest regards, Alexander
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Originally Posted by: Kotin  Hi Alex, I was reading your thoughts on using the Satellite API to get live feedback into a custom UI. It's a very clever workaround, as getting real-time state sync (colors, text, faders) out of vMix and into a clean dashboard is definitely a known challenge. Since you mentioned you are actively looking for a "visually clear interface" with proper live updates, I wanted to share a free tool I recently developed that might interest you. It’s called VRC (Video Recording Control Hub). Instead of relying on middleware, I built it natively on Windows (WinUI 3) to connect directly to the vMix TCP/XML API. Because of this, it inherently has instant live feedback for everything: input states, SRT routing, and active audio faders (including Volume, L/R channels, and Gain) without needing Companion as a bridge. Panel Builder is a legendary tool, but if you are looking for a highly dense, modern UI specifically designed to monitor and control vMix nodes with real-time feedback out of the box, you might find VRC useful for your workflow. You can check out the releases and UI screenshots here: https://github.com/Kotin-ak/VRC-ReleasesBest regards, Alexander Thanks for the hint Kotlin. I had already seen your tool, and I’ll definitely take a closer look at it when I get the chance. What I really need, though, is a very flexible and clearly structured UI—similar to what Panel Builder offers. Ideally, I’d also like to integrate Bitfocus Companion buttons, including reliable feedback and state handling. Unfortunately, Companion’s TCP API currently doesn’t seem to provide all the capabilities required for this.
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Hi Alex,
That makes total sense! VRC has a very dense, fixed layout for engineering, so if you need a drag-and-drop, free-canvas dashboard like Panel Builder, VRC definitely won't replace that visually for you.
However, regarding your struggle with Companion’s TCP API lacking reliable feedback and state handling — that is exactly the headache I ran into, which forced me to build the background logic of VRC.
Just as a side note for your project: VRC actually runs a local HTTP Control API and a SignalR Hub (/hubs/control) in the background. It takes all the heavy, complex vMix XML/TCP data and translates it into clean, real-time state broadcasts. The SignalR hub pushes ButtonFeedback (including on/off states and HEX colors) and ActivatorEvent payloads directly to external clients. It even has a native Elgato Stream Deck plugin built around this.
So while VRC might not be your front-end UI, it could potentially act as that reliable "state-handling middleware" for your Companion setup if you ever decide to pull data from a clean REST/SignalR endpoint instead of directly fighting the vMix TCP API.
Good luck with the integration! It's a very cool concept you are building.
Best,
Alexander
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Originally Posted by: mairginter@hotmail.com Hi @raugert, I’ve been thinking about the Bitfocus Companion integration and wanted to share some ideas with you. From what I’ve seen on GitHub, it doesn’t look like a Feedback API integration will be available anytime soon. Because of that, I’d like to suggest a workaround that I believe is the cleanest approach. My idea revolves entirely around the Satellite API. Companion allows you to create a button that essentially references another button, and it also mirrors feedback elements such as button color and text. With that in mind, all buttons needed in Panel Builder could be placed on a dedicated Companion page (e.g., "vMixPanelBuilder") and referenced there. Panel Builder could then use the Satellite API to integrate these buttons—including button color, text color, labels, etc.—cleanly and with proper live updates. There would even be a way to integrate rotary encoders as touch sliders. I’m not sure how much development effort this would require or whether this is something you’re interested in at all, but I wanted to share the idea anyway. I really like your tool, and since I still rely on Companion as well, I’m always looking for a more customizable and visually clear interface than what Companion currently offers. Best regards, Alex Thanks for the suggestion Alex. The issue with BitFocus Companion's API is not that it doesn't report the button color feedback. It actually does, and Panel Builder is able to capture and parse the TCP results from the Bitfocus API. The problem is that it only sends a message with the "CHANGES" when a button changes color. Now the REAL issue is that I need a way to get the "current color" state of the buttons that contain feedback in order to set the Initial button colors when "Loading" a Panel Builder template. I've discovered that this actually happens when a device is disconnected then reconnected. The Bitfocus API sends a message listing the state of all the buttons containing feedback for that device. So.. The current work around is to program a button ( I chose 1/3/0) with Press actions to disconnect and then reconnect the device. This way I get the color state of all the Buttons that contain feedback. Now I can set them in Panel Builder. Some folks are successfully using this method in Panel Builder to trigger BitFocus buttons and get the tallies to work properly. Ideally, it would be nice to have an API function in BitFocus that requests this information without having to program a disconnect and reconnect of a device within a Button. Richard
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Thanks for the feedback, @Raugert.
As I already mentioned earlier, I can’t get the feedback working at all anymore — not even with your trick. It worked perfectly fine until some time ago, and then it suddenly stopped.
Sometimes a Bitfocus button just turns red and never updates again. The press actions, however, still work perfectly fine.
This is also the reason why I wanted to give you a little nudge in this direction 🙂 — and because I’d really love to use things like text feedback and similar features.
Do you have any idea what else I could try?
I’m pretty sure the issue is on the Companion side, since I’ve already tested all versions of the Panel Builder that I have, with the same result.
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