# Why RDMBench

> Other tools display RDM; RDMBench reads it and remembers it, with the Enttec widget already in the drawer. What it is for, and what it is not.

- **Runs on:** macOS 15 Sequoia or later, Apple silicon
- **Needs:** An Enttec DMX USB Pro with its DMX/RDM firmware (major version 2)
- **Price:** Free

The data was always reachable. A fixture will tell anyone who asks over
RDM its hours, its sensors, its faults and its mode. What was missing
was the reading of it: a list of numbers is not an answer to "why is
this unit on my bench".

![RDMBench's monitor on a simulated Martin MAC Aura, polling once a second: the head temperature has climbed from a 66 °C baseline to 86 °C against a normal range of 0 to 70, marked in orange, and the events list shows the head temperature going from OK to WARNING at 72 °C and the fixture's own over-temperature status message.](https://www.rdmbench.com/images/app/monitor-light.webp)

*Monitoring, on the simulator: the fault that only shows once the unit has been running.*

## It reads

Every other tool I know, from handhelds to a console's RDM window,
*displays* RDM. RDMBench *reads* it:

- **The complaint first.** Pick what the unit came in for, and the
  report opens with the lines that explain it, or says plainly that
  nothing the fixture reports does, and where to look instead.
- **Sensors against their limits**, not just their values, and one
  OK, WARNING or ERROR rating for the whole unit.
- **The configuration that is often the whole fault.** Address,
  personality, what each channel does, and, with the fixture's GDTF
  file, what the desk calls that mode.

## It remembers

Every report is kept on the bench computer, under the unit it came
from. When a unit comes back, its history is there: what changed since
the last visit, what was repaired, and what keeps recurring.

## With the widget you already own

RDMBench runs on an Enttec DMX USB Pro, the interface a lot of shops
already have in a drawer, and for which Enttec ships no maintained RDM
software.

## What it is not

- **Not a handheld.** A pocket tester such as the DMXcat owns the belt
  clip and the truss ladder, and it does things RDMBench does not, like
  testing DMX output and finding flicker. RDMBench is for the bench and
  the desk.
- **Not the maker's own tool.** For Martin fixtures, Martin Companion
  knows Martin's status codes, private parameters and spares better than
  any cross-brand tool. Use it, and use RDMBench for everything else on
  the bench.
- **Not rig management.** It works on a live line, but it is built for
  one fixture at a time, read in depth.
- **Not a hosted service.** Reports stay on the bench computer.