This reference design allows for the direction of communication on an RS-485 bus to be set automatically when a node needs to transmit data. The transceiver enables the driver for a configurable length of time when data is sent to a transceiver device from a host microcontroller (MCU) or universal asynchronous-receiver transmitter (UART). This eliminates the need for manual control of the driver enable of the transceiver and the need for the receiver-enable controls, reducing the number of logic pins needed to implement the RS-485 interface.