Any device connected to a network environment, such as computers, printers, smartphones and also lasers, no matter if it's a wired connection or wifi network, has a unique identification number. This unique address is the so called IP address.

The IP address type used for the communication with the laser systems consists of a group of 4 numbers (each between 0 and 255), separed by a point (".") symbol. It looks like this:

www.xxx.yyy.zzz

Schematics example of an IP/v4 address:


If devices shall communicate with each other, they need to reside in the same address range, which means that the first 3 numbers must be the same. The fourth number, however, must be unique for each device in the network.

In a home or office environment the computers and hardware components usually get these addresses assigned automatically by the so called DHCP server, which included in the utmost of routers or wifi access points. That's why it is usually not necessary to take care of setting these addresses manually. However, if there is no DHCP server available, the devices in a network either need to negotiate the suitable addresses for each device between each other (so called Auto IP) or they requrie static IP addresses the be manually set.

As there is usually no DHCP available at show production sites, laser show settings may require either Auto IP setting or static IP.

Show production companies tend to use static IPs, as then the address distribution does not depend on any additional communication between the devices in the network and each unit can be checked on more specifically through the network and various tools.