It’s that time of year again! The CTRE Phoenix Software packages are now available for the 2024 season - links are available at the bottom of this post.

The road to get here started in the early off-season and was made possible by the invaluable contributions of alpha and beta testers. Across a total of 16 pre-season releases (8 alpha releases and 8 beta releases) you’ve updated, simulated, generated, closed-looped, and chrp’d your way through testing some of the largest feature additions and changes we’ve ever released. We’d like to give a resounding Thank You! to everyone who’s tested and contributed feedback for Phoenix this year, including all of our test teams, community members, and WPILib developers who helped make this year’s release what it is.

We’ve captured the major changes and most important reminders below, but there’s too much to fit in one blog! For a full list of changes check out our “New for 2024” page here:

New for 2024

Changes to Phoenix Components

Phoenix 6

New for 2024 is the Phoenix 6 library (formerly known as Phoenix Pro). You can find more details and our previous announcement here, with the major points as follows:

• Phoenix 6 is the new version of the Phoenix library and is free for all users
• Phoenix 6 supports Talon FX (including for Kraken X60), CANcoder, and Pigeon 2.0.
• Phoenix 6 and v5 can both be used in the same robot project - simply add both the “Phoenix 6” and “Phoenix 5” vendor dependencies.
• Phoenix 5 is not going away and will be supported for the foreseeable future. However, the TalonFX, CANcoder, and Pigeon2 classes in v5 are deprecated (but still present!) for 2024 and will be removed in 2025. We recommend using v6 for these devices instead.
• Phoenix 5 does not support the Kraken X60’s Talon FX.

Note: Phoenix 6 is currently available for all FRC languages except LabVIEW. There is a Phoenix 6 LabVIEW alpha being developed for teams who are interested in using Phoenix 6 features in LabVIEW. Teams who are interested in this may reach out to us directly.

Phoenix 5 LabVIEW VIs are available now in the kickoff release.

A migration guide is available here to help you port your Phoenix 5 code to Phoenix 6.

Phoenix Pro

Since Phoenix 6 is freely available, Phoenix Pro no longer requires a separate API. Instead some advanced device features in Phoenix 6 require a Phoenix Pro license. We also have a new licensing type available for 2024 - the Phoenix Pro Season Pass.

You can see which features require Pro here:

https://v6.docs.ctr-electronics.com/en/stable/docs/migration/new-to-phoenix.html#phoenix-pro

An overview on Season Pass is available here:

https://store.ctr-electronics.com/blog/phoenix-pro-licensing-announcing-season-pass/

And a breakdown of the different license types is available here:

https://store.ctr-electronics.com/phoenix-pro/

Phoenix Tuner X

Phoenix Tuner continues to evolve, and Phoenix Tuner X has a full set of new features and improvements to take advantage of, including batch device licensing, plotter improvements, and a swerve robot project generator.

IMPORTANT Note: On computers that already have Tuner X, make sure you have the latest version installed by comparing the version in the upper-left title bar to the latest version listed in the links below. If you need to update, go to Tuner X’s Microsoft Store Page where there will be an “Update” button.

Major Features

API Improvement

Phoenix 6 is a significant API improvement over Phoenix 5 and has been designed to integrate cleanly with modern programming practices and WPILib.

See the documentation on Phoenix 6 API usage for full details.

Swerve Support

Phoenix 6 has a new API to make programming swerve easier than ever. Tuner X also has a swerve project generator that will create a custom base robot project in Java to get your swerve drive up and running fast with CTRE devices.

The base generated project works with a gamepad out-of-the-box and can also easily be used with Pathplanner!

Data Logging

Phoenix 6 features a real-time, high-fidelity signal logger that captures every CTRE device data point as it is received from the CAN bus to a `.hoot` log file. Signal logging is enabled by default during official matches and can be enabled by an API call for all other cases (including simulation and hardware-attached simulation).

Using the Tuner X log extractor, all users can export common data signals to standard WPILOG format, and Pro users can export a full set of advanced data signals to both WPILOG and MCAP formats.

As a bonus, thanks to work done by the AdvantageScope developers you can import a Phoenix `.hoot` log file directly into AdvantageScope!

SysId Characterization

Our engineers worked with the SysId development team to provide real-world test data and ensure a smooth experience in characterizing mechanisms. All v6 users can utilize the data logged by Phoenix to get an extremely accurate mechanism characterization from SysId by exporting the data to a WPILOG!

Automatic timestamps of Phoenix logged data also means you can get accurate characterization regardless of which programming language is used.

New Motion Magic® Controls

Phoenix 6 has several new Motion Magic® features. This includes Dynamic Motion Magic® (requires Pro and CANivore) to allow adjusting trajectory constraints during motion, Motion Magic® Velocity to run a velocity motion profile, and Motion Magic® Expo to run an exponential profile using system characteristics.

… And More!

There’s too many new additions to link in one blog post, so be sure to read our “New for 2024” documentation!

2024 Phoenix Links

Software Downloads, Documentation, API reference, and Examples can all be found on the main CTRE Phoenix page:

https://docs.ctr-electronics.com/

The latest versions available are:

• Phoenix 6: v24.1.0
• Phoenix 5: v5.33.0
• Phoenix Tuner X: 2024.6.1.0
• Phoenix Offline Installer for FRC: v24.1.0.0