Call for cooperation

[pietwauters]

Hi,
I am working on a similar initiative. I have called it OpenPiste protocol. See https://openpiste.org/ and https://github.com/OpenPiste/protocols It is also work in progress, but there is already a reference implementation in C++ that is easy to translate into any other language.

I think it would be useful to join forces in this project. What do you think?
If you browse my repo's you will see I already have a full functional scoring device, a web based piste monitor, a touch screen remote control, a remote control app, and more to come.

What do you think?

Piet

[seigel]

Piet! Thanks for reaching out! I have taken a glance at your site and project and love it. I have also forwarded it to my kids who are excellent at programming and electrical engineering topics! You might be getting a whole family involved...you never know!

Having a great initiative like this will give me a purpose behind working on this besides just for making a one off system at our club here in Calgary, AB, Canada! I don't know if you have it, I have a copy of the cyrano 2.0 spec as well if you'd like a copy.

This sounds like a lot of fun! I haven't looked carefully, but if not, do you have a direction you are heading?

Looking forward to chatting more!
Cheers

[pietwauters]

Hi James,
I'm not sure if we are talking about the same document. I remember a SEMI2.0 document that tried to solve some of the issues with Cyrano. It was essentially the same concept, with a few additions and some network topology clarifications. So if yours is different, yes I would like a copy.

What I am trying to create is a modern, robust IoT approach based on 2 standard technologies: mqtt and json. I'm trying to solve some problems of the original Cyrano 1.1:

• UDP: is a lossy protocol. Packet loss is not a theoretical problem but is very much present in real life situations. For displays and competition management systems that is not really problematic, because after some time the state is resend. For Video refereeing this is problematic. That is why I'm adding timestamps to timing critical information. This allows synchronization. And I use mqtt for message exchange. Mqtt uses tcp as a transport protocol. So much less chance of data loss.
• Discovery of devices: now the CMS needs to have a list of IP addresses of the devices and it is almost impossible to mix different brands that use different IP reservation mechanisms. Next to that I don't like static IP addresses too much, as they are a source of many unexpected and difficult to find problems. Therefor I have a single mqtt broker. The only address that needs to be known by all. For a small network, I use mDNS, for larger networks either a fixed IP address or a DSN server has to be used.
• The CSV like structure of Cyrano makes it difficult to maintain different back and forward compatible version. I use json, which makes this trivial.
• I'm also standardizing the remote control protocol.
• ...
  TLTR:
  I'm trying to build an open standard in which all devices can be used with eachother interchangably. There have been many attempts in the past to come to such a standard, but Fencing is like a big ship, it takes time to change the direction. That is why I created an open source project to attract people who understand and are willing to test, help, contribute.

In a nutshell that's it. The cherry on the cake is that you get for less than 100$ a full functional, networkded scoring device + remote control.

I hope this clarifies my intention a bit.

Piet

[pietwauters]

Hi James, I'll contact you directly too. Good to read that you are interested. Having your entire family on board would mean a lot to me. It is very hard to find people in fencing with a decent technical background, who really understand how things work. Take your time to go through the information and let me know what you think, and if you need help. I currently have working: the scoring device with a remote control app on Android or a remote control based on a touch screen. Every scoring device can also act as a wireless repeater for any other scoring device. It works with all competition management softwares that use Cyrano. There is a tester device for testing weapons, lamé and wires (sub Ohm precision) There is web server to display what is happening on the strips, and hopefully much more to come. My idea is a paperless system that can be easily used in clubs: for small club competitions, pool of the month, .... There is a little raspberry Pi server that is just online. People come in, register and a few minutes later they're fencing a competition. No paper, no pool sheets, no expensive cms. This is my way to prove that there is still room for innovation. Piet

…

On Sun, 24 May 2026 at 18:24, James Seigel ***@***.***> wrote: *seigel* left a comment (seigel/cyrano#23) <#23 (comment)> Piet! Thanks for reaching out! I have taken a glance at your site and project and love it. I have also forwarded it to my kids who are excellent at programming and electrical engineering topics! You might be getting a whole family involved...you never know! Having a great initiative like this will give me a purpose behind working on this besides just for making a one off system at our club here in Calgary, AB, Canada! I don't know if you have it, I have a copy of the cyrano 2.0 spec as well if you'd like a copy. This sounds like a lot of fun! I haven't looked carefully, but if not, do you have a direction you are heading? Looking forward to chatting more! Cheers — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#23 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AQABLCPVNAJPPW7QQL7THG344MO5LAVCNFSM6AAAAACZKK5XR6VHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHM2DKMRZGMZTAOJVGI> . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[seigel]

It is the SEMI one, so no worries.

I love the direction you are going with this. My initial goal when starting this implementation was based around hardware at our club. We have all FA-05s. My prototype I had built was a single esp32 connected to the back of the data port on pairs of FA-05s using MQTT to broadcast the data back to a nodejs server which then drove a big display in the viewing area with react based visualizations of scoring machines updating real time, and integrating with FT to report scores back to it realtime.

I am excited to help out! Let me know what you think I might be able to focus on that would be helpful for you. I can give you a bit of a CV or interests breakdown if you'd like to see what I do. This is a quick and terrible overview of what I have done ...linked in style

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jseigel/

[pietwauters]

Aha,
I see we approached this in quite a similar way, esp32, mqtt, nodejs, …
So it should be easy to exchange ideas and even implementations.

Regarding your set-up: I have esp32 code that speaks the FA-05 remote control protocol. If you’d run that on the Cheap Yellow Display remote control I developed, and combine it with your data connection to the FA-05 a lot of interesting possibilities open up. The Cyrano part (or what I would prefer of course the OpenFencing Protocol) could be run on the remote control. Getting the next match, confirming results, … That would give you a complete networked system in your club. If we could convince Dan Berke to move to mqtt a lot of things would get much easier.

Right now, I need a sanity check. Is what I'm trying to achieve realistic, am I missing fundamental things, ... Next to that, I would love if people also start to use my devices. I always like real user feedback to improve.
It is fully open source, but you need minimal electronics skills (some soldering) to be able to build it.
And lastly, I hope to build a community around fencing electronics and IT. I am the director of innovation of the European Fencing Confederation, and this community is one of my targets.

[seigel]

Awesome...I'll read through more of your site and repos over the next few days. I already put in an order for a few Cheap Yellow Display boards to play with. I'll see if the whole picture you paint looks sane, and maybe see if I have some proposals or ideas that we can chat about.

Where in the world are you located? I'd love to hear more about the Innovation of the European Fencing Confederation and see if there is something we could start up over here to compliment and coordinate with on this side of the world :D I am not keen on putting my email on here, but if you either message me on linkedin or DM me on instagram at @seigel or we can find another way :D

I'll try and dig up some of my older react code and compare it with your display. I found it from a long while ago, but still searching for my mqtt -> node consumer and upgrader. I had parsed the serial coming off of the fa-05 and published it mostly raw and had node on a bigger machine publish a nice json version of the data to share with the frontends. Anyway fun times..

I'll also look over the electronics and order any pcbs or build some stuff to make a set up over here to play with!

Looking forward to working with you!