---
title: 'ComChan : A Blazingly Fast Serial Monitor/Plotter written in Rust'
tags:
- embedded systems
- rust
- serial communication
- tui
- cli
authors:
- name: Vaishnav Sabari Girish
orcid: 0009-0001-7109-5970
affiliation: 1
affiliations:
- name: Student Researcher, Jain (Deemed-to-be) University, India
index: 1
date: 2025-08-01
bibliography: paper.bib
---
# Summary
Debugging, data acquisition and system validation through serial interfaces is key in low-level hardware and microcontroller development. Whether monitoring sensor output, sending commands or observing device responses in real time, developers rely on serial terminals to see what’s going on. Despite their importance, many existing tools are limited in flexibility, interactivity or ease of use in a workflow. `ComChan` fills those gaps by providing a fast, responsive and portable command-line interface for performance and usability. Written in Rust, it’s minimalistic but has all you need for practical use: live input/output monitoring, custom output formatting and logging. As embedded development workflows get more complex and time sensitive, tools like `ComChan` are the foundation for efficient and reliable communication with hardware systems [@ratatui] [@clap].
# Statement of need
`ComChan` is a Rust based command line serial monitor for embedded systems developers, hobbyists and engineers working with microcontrollers or other serial devices. The philosophy behind `ComChan` is high performance and responsiveness without complexity or usability sacrificed. While many serial terminal programs offer a lot of features, they often have platform inconsistencies, heavy dependencies or outdated UI. `ComChan` is a minimal yet powerful alternative that is easy to install, fast to launch and comfortable to use in scriptable, keyboard driven workflows.
The tool provides a smooth and efficient interface to monitor and interact with serial data streams. It has features like real time line buffered I/O, color enhanced terminal output for readability and options for logging and visualizing serial data. Minimal by design, `ComChan` is meant to be extended and customized, so it’s good for both casual and power users. It’s especially useful in educational environments or labs where quick feedback from connected devices is critical.
With the rise of embedded development platforms and serial communication in fields like robotics, IoT and electronics prototyping, `ComChan` fills a practical need for a modern, lightweight serial monitor that integrates well into developer toolchains. Its performance, ease of use and extensibility makes it a useful utility for both learning and real world embedded system development.
# References