vudials_client

A Python client library for Streacom's VU1 Dial development hardware. Provides a simple, tested interface for controlling multiple dials and managing the VU1 server.

Features

• Full Dial API: Change a dial's value, backlight color, name, background image, and easing parameters
• Full Admin API: VU1 Dial Server API key management and dial provisioning
• Type-annotated: All public methods carry full parameter and return-type annotations
• Well tested: Comprehensive test suite using pytest and responses — no live hardware required
• CI tested: Passes on Python 3.11, 3.12, and 3.13 via GitHub Actions

Installation

pip install vudials-client

For development:

git clone git@github.com:erinlkolp/vu1-dial-python-module.git
cd vu1-dial-python-module
pip install -e ".[dev]"

Quick Start

import os
from vudials_client import vudialsclient

server_address = os.environ["VU1_SERVER_ADDRESS"]
server_port    = int(os.environ["VU1_SERVER_PORT"])
server_key     = os.environ["API_KEY"]
admin_key      = os.environ["ADMIN_API_KEY"]

vu_meter  = vudialsclient.VUDial(server_address, server_port, server_key)
admin_api = vudialsclient.VUAdmin(server_address, server_port, admin_key)

# List connected dials
dial_list = vu_meter.list_dials()
print(dial_list.json())

# Set first dial to 75% with a blue backlight
uid = dial_list.json()[0]["uid"]
vu_meter.set_dial_value(uid, 75)
vu_meter.set_dial_color(uid, 0, 0, 100)

# List API keys
api_key_list = admin_api.list_api_keys()
print(api_key_list.json())

Note: The VU1 server communicates over plain HTTP on your local network. Keep the server on a trusted interface and treat the API keys as secrets. Both keys are passed as URL query parameters and will appear in server access logs.

API Reference

VUDial

Controls dial hardware. All methods return a requests.Response; HTTP 4xx/5xx errors raise requests.exceptions.HTTPError.

vu_meter = vudialsclient.VUDial(server_address, server_port, api_key)

Methods:

VUAdmin

Manages the VU1 server. All methods return a requests.Response; HTTP 4xx/5xx errors raise requests.exceptions.HTTPError.

admin_api = vudialsclient.VUAdmin(server_address, server_port, admin_key)

Methods:

Testing

The test suite uses responses to mock all HTTP calls — no VU1 hardware or running server is required.

# Run all tests with coverage report
pytest tests/ -v --cov=vudials_client --cov-report=term-missing

# Run a specific test class
pytest tests/test_vudialsclient.py::TestVUDialSetDialColor -v

CI runs automatically on every push and pull request via GitHub Actions across Python 3.11, 3.12, and 3.13.

Documentation

Full API documentation can be regenerated from docstrings:

pip install pydoc-markdown
pydoc-markdown

This writes docs/api.md using the configuration in pydoc-markdown.yml.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please open a pull request.

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/my-feature)
3. Make your changes and add tests for any new or modified behaviour
4. Ensure the test suite passes: pytest tests/ -v
5. Open a pull request against main

Please follow the existing code style: type-annotate all public methods, URL-encode user-supplied path segments with quote(value, safe=""), and keep library code free of logging.basicConfig() calls.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

Author

Erin L. Kolp (erinlkolpfoss@gmail.com)

Many thanks to Aaron D. and Christopher K.!