What they have in common
Art-Net and sACN (Streaming ACN, standardised as ANSI E1.31) both send DMX512 data over Ethernet using UDP. Each packet carries one universe of up to 512 channels. A lighting controller can send hundreds of universes over one network cable, and a node or pixel controller turns them back into DMX lines or pixel data.
Side by side
| Art-Net 4 | sACN (ANSI E1.31) | |
|---|---|---|
| Maintained by | Artistic Licence | ESTA (ANSI standard) |
| UDP port | 6454 | 5568 |
| Universe numbering | 15-bit port-address, universe 0 is valid | 1 to 63999, universe 0 is not used |
| Delivery | Unicast to known nodes; broadcast is allowed but discouraged at scale | Multicast group per universe, or unicast |
| Discovery | ArtPoll / ArtPollReply finds nodes on the network | Sources can announce universes; receivers cannot be polled |
| Merging and backup | Merge modes in the receiver (HTP/LTP) | Per-source priority 0 to 200 for backup and handover |
| RDM | Carried over the network (ArtRdm) | Not part of E1.31; RDM needs a separate path such as RDMnet |
When to choose Art-Net
- Pixel controllers and nodes whose documentation and configuration tools are built around Art-Net.
- Installations where you want to find controllers automatically with ArtPoll.
- Remote device management with RDM over the same network.
- Small, dedicated lighting networks where unicast to each node is easy to manage.
When to choose sACN
- Managed venue or building networks where multicast is controlled with IGMP snooping.
- Systems with a main and a backup controller: the higher-priority source wins and the backup takes over when it stops.
- Consoles and gateways that are configured for sACN by default.
Network practice for either protocol
- Keep lighting on its own VLAN or physical network, away from office and guest traffic.
- Prefer unicast Art-Net over broadcast once more than a handful of universes are in play.
- For sACN multicast, enable IGMP snooping and a querier so switches only forward the universes each receiver joined.
- Give every node a static address and document which universes it owns. Two sources writing the same universe is the most common cause of flicker.
How Lightshaped handles it
In Lightshaped the protocol is a choice per universe route, so one rig can send Art-Net to a pixel controller, sACN to a house gateway and DDP to a WLED node at the same time. Lightshaped can identify what a controller speaks with read-only probes and proposes a protocol, but routes only change through the commissioning flow, and blackout and dead-man safety apply to every route.
Questions people ask
- Is sACN better than Art-Net?
- Neither is better in general. sACN's priority and multicast suit large managed networks and backup controllers; Art-Net's discovery and RDM suit pixel controllers and nodes that are configured for it.
- Can Art-Net and sACN run on the same network?
- Yes. They use different UDP ports. Make sure each universe has exactly one source unless you deliberately use sACN priority for backup.
- Why does sACN not have universe 0?
- E1.31 reserves universe 0 and numbers universes from 1 to 63999, while Art-Net's port-address starts at 0. Offsetting by one is a common source of patch errors when you move between the two.