The RS232 serial interface on MOBOTIX cameras not only supports pure text transmission (see Web terminal), it can also trigger events and alarm messages through user-definable strings which are received on the serial port. If an error message is detected, the camera can be used in this way to send an alarm to an engineer by means of an ISDN or IP phone call.

The incoming data can be entered either visibly in the image or, for further computer-aided processing the form of meta data, in ASCII format in the commentary for the JPEG image. POS data via the serial port can thus be shown as standard in the image. For this purpose, the corresponding wildcard containing the number of lines to be displayed is simply specified in the image text which can be superimposed.

In conjunction with the soft buttons (see soft buttons), character strings or control sequences can also be output on the serial port. Consequently, external devices (heating, phone, industrial equipment, pan/tilt heads) can simply be operated from a remote location via the browser for the purpose of opening gates or switching on the heating in your holiday home, for example. The output of control sequences can also be automatically triggered by events.