Sorry for my inactivity!
I am concerned with the transmitting device only. I've tried just leaving a wire connected to only the TX of the handheld controller as well as connecting both the TX of the controller and the RX of my other device. Neither event works. The TX LED does not flash to show that it's working, and of course my other device does not respond to my controller because there's apparently no data being transferred. I find this confusing and a big problem because in my experience, the TX should at least blink when the pin is being used or a wire is even hooked up to it with some sort of input/output signal.
Also, I chose to use EasyTransfer because it was described as a reliable method for continuously transferring batches of data (multiple variables) as serial values using the TX/RX pins.