As more and more devices are used with Tulip, we continue to gather feedback on how we can improve connectivity and device integration into the platform. Data from devices is important, and Tulip users are connecting to dozens and dozens of different devices, machines and equipment.

While we have come a long way, there are still hundreds of devices that do not have drivers in Tulip, and we have been actively working on ways to easily bring data from any device you use into the platform.

We have listened to a lot of user feedback on this, and are excited to soon release a Tulip Software Development Kit (SDK) for creating custom device drivers that will provide new, easier ways to connect hardware in your operations. Drivers built on Tulip will be supported on Windows and Linux computers running Player as well as on Tulip Edge Devices, eliminating the need for complex middleware solutions.

By creating a driver in Tulip, you will not have to worry about infrastructure, versioning and upgrades, you can focus on creating simple driver logic with less code.

With the Tulip SDK, app builders will be able to create faster, more powerful, and cross-platform device drivers.

These drivers will run locally, without Internet-based latency, enabling fast communication and processing. Drivers developed with the SDK will allow you to quickly integrate with devices via serial, HID, Torque Open Protocol, MQTT, and more. Having data from these devices in Tulip helps reduce manual input errors for operators.

We will make it easy to create and manage drivers at scale – Tulip will handle all plug events, device configuration and events passed within our framework. The Tulip SDK will be available in several languages, starting with TypeScript.

If you are interested in participating in our device driver beta program, we will be announcing more details soon on Tulip Community. Over the next few months we will be sharing more details about the SDK and are working hard to get this in the hands of our users.

Do you love open source? So do we. If you have an idea for connecting open device drivers to Tulip, or want to contribute to our hardware abstraction layer (HAL) then get in touch on the Tulip Developer category in Tulip Community.