P56 Studio

The open-source replacement for the Holoscope app.
Control P56 / Holoscope POV hologram fans from Windows, Android, the command line or Home Assistant. Local, fast, no account, no cloud.

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Features

Full control The fan is drawn as a dial: drag the outer ring to turn the picture; brightness (16 steps) is the slider below it. Plus power, play/pause, repeat, breathing light, autostart, volume, rename, delete, format and factory reset. Upload anything Photos, GIFs and video (decoded right in the app), or just type a text: it is word-wrapped and sized to fit the round display. Live cast Stream a test card, your media (photos, GIFs, videos), your camera, your screen or, in Home Assistant, any camera entity to one or more fans at up to 25 fps, with nothing stored on the fan.

True preview See exactly what the fan will show, both as the round picture and as the fan's own polar layout, before you send it. Network setup Rename the fan, change its hotspot, put it on your Wi-Fi (router mode). Home Assistant An add-on and integration: text with icons and ready-made styles, notifications, camera snapshots, GIFs and videos on the fan from your automations, and pictures drawn by AI (ComfyUI in your house, or Google through Home Assistant). Learn more →

Screenshots

Media: text, photo, GIF or video, with the round preview and the picture as the fan receives it	The same app on Android
Cast: a test card, your media, a video, the camera or the screen, live

The look is called Baan (Dutch for orbit): everything is round, like the fan itself. See docs/DESIGN.md.

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Get started

Step by step for everyday use: user guide.

Windows

1. Download P56.Studio_…_x64-setup.exe from the latest release and install it.
2. Connect the PC to the fan's Wi-Fi hotspot, or put the PC and the fan on the same router.
3. Close Holoscope: only one program can serve a fan at a time.
4. Start P56 Studio. Windows asks to open the firewall the first time: allow it for private networks.
5. The fan appears by itself.

Good to know: a P56 has a 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi radio only (so use a 2.4 GHz network for router mode), and with an empty playlist it blinks four blue LEDs: keep one black picture on it.

Android

1. Download P56-Studio-…-android.apk from the latest release and open it (allow installing from your browser if asked).
2. Join the fan's Wi-Fi hotspot (or the same router) and open P56 Studio.

The app keeps using the fan's Wi-Fi even though it has no internet, and keeps the screen on while you cast.

Home Assistant

Install the add-on and integration from trackerr/home-assistant-p56: one-click install buttons, a sidebar panel with this app, and actions like p56_pov.show_text.

Fan not showing up? Check that both devices are on the same network, that Holoscope is closed, and that the firewall allows UDP 8988 and TCP 6666. You can also enter the fan's IP in the App tab (Fan IP, if you know it).

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No fan? Use the simulator

p56-sim behaves exactly like a real fan on your network, so you can try everything without hardware.

p56-sim                      # one simulated P56
p56-sim --count 3            # three fans

Open P56 Studio and the simulated fan connects by itself. http://localhost:8099/ shows what it displays, its settings and any protocol errors.

Command line

p56: every feature from a terminal or script

p56 info                              # all fans with their status
p56 upload photo.jpg --slot 1         # also .gif, and video when ffmpeg is installed
p56 cast test --seconds 10            # live test card
p56 brightness 12
p56 angle -45
p56 name LivingRoom
p56 router MyWifi mypassword          # put the fan on your Wi-Fi
p56 --help

Options for all commands: --target <fan-ip>:8988 (reach a fan directly), --fan <n> / --all (several fans), --type <fan type>, --wait <seconds>.

Server

p56-server runs the same engine headless, with an HTTP API, live events and this web app:

p56-server --http-port 8765            # add --simulate for a virtual fan

Then open http://localhost:8765/. It powers the Home Assistant add-on; static Linux builds (x86_64 and aarch64) are in every release.

It answers only this machine until you add --lan; protect that with --api-token <token>. --fan-allow <ip> limits which addresses may connect as a fan. --comfyui http://<pc>:8188 makes AI pictures with ComfyUI and Qwen Image 2.1 on a computer in your house (--comfyui-size, default 768); see the add-on documentation.

One server can be the single controller of your fans while Home Assistant, browsers and P56 Studio on other phones and computers use it at the same time (App tab → Control through a P56 server): a fan keeps one connection, to the app or server it found.

API in short

Request	What it does
GET /api/state	Connected fans, status and playlists
POST /api/show	Show text or a picture: {"text": "Hello", "show_seconds": 30}
POST /api/call/<command>	Any app command, e.g. control {"id": 1, "action": "off"}
GET /api/events	Live events (server-sent events)
POST /api/call/show_ai	An AI picture on the fan: {"prompt": "a jellyfish", "show_seconds": 30}
GET /api/shown/<mac>	PNG of what the fan was last sent (faded when it is no longer on it)

Full reference: add-on documentation.

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Supported fans

Fan types (as reported by the fan)	Status
8 (P56), 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 11, 14, 17	✅ Supported (JPEG picture format)
6, 7, 12, 13, 15	⚠️ Sent in the older Holoscope.exe format; newer firmware may ignore it
others	❌ Not implemented yet

The protocol was worked out from the Holoscope app and is documented in PROTOCOL.md. Everything is tested against the built-in simulator.

How it fits together

flowchart LR
    core["p56-core<br/>protocol, pictures, network"]
    service["p56-service<br/>upload, cast, text, settings"]
    app["P56 Studio<br/>Windows and Android"]
    server["p56-server<br/>HTTP API and web app"]
    ha["Home Assistant<br/>add-on and integration"]
    cli["p56<br/>command line"]
    sim["p56-sim<br/>virtual fans"]
    fan(("POV fan"))

    core --> service
    service --> app
    service --> server
    server --> ha
    core --> cli
    core --> sim
    app -.->|"UDP 8988, TCP 6666"| fan
    server -.-> fan

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Repository layout

Folder	What
crates/p56-core	Protocol, picture conversion (polar warp, JPEG), network link
crates/p56-service	Everything the apps do, behind one command API
app/	P56 Studio: Tauri 2 shell + React UI (app/ui, Radix primitives with its own design: DESIGN.md)
crates/p56-cli	p56 command line
crates/p56-sim	Simulated fans with a web view
crates/p56-server	Headless server for Home Assistant and other hosts
ha/	Home Assistant add-on and integration — the source of home-assistant-p56, which is published from this folder with git subtree split --prefix ha (make changes here, not there)
e2e/, scripts/	End-to-end tests, gauntlet loop, Android build, README screenshots

Build and test

Build from source

Requirements: Rust (stable), Node 20 + pnpm; for Android the SDK/NDK (see scripts/android.ps1).

cargo build --release --workspace                 # p56, p56-sim, p56-server, P56 Studio
cd app/ui && pnpm install && pnpm run bundle      # after UI changes → app/src/index.html
cd app && npx tauri build                         # Windows installer
powershell -File scripts/android.ps1 build        # Android APK

Release signing of the APK reads app/src-tauri/gen/android/keystore.properties (not in git).

Run the tests

cargo test --workspace                            # unit, simulator, CLI and server tests
powershell -File scripts/gauntlet.ps1 -Rounds 20  # everything, repeated until something fails
node e2e/app-e2e.mjs                              # the real app against the simulator
cd ha && pytest                                   # Home Assistant integration against p56-server

GitHub Actions runs the Rust tests, the UI build and the Home Assistant tests on every push, and builds all release files from a version tag.

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MIT licensed · Not affiliated with the maker of the fans or of Holoscope.
The protocol was worked out for interoperability with hardware you own; no vendor code or binaries are included.