Say you want to convert from UTF-8 to iso-latin-1,

use Encode qw( decode encode );

... input ...

foreach ($hardwareValue1, $hardwareValue2) {
    $_ = decode('UTF-8', $_);
}

... do some work ...

foreach ($hardwareValue1, $hardwareValue2) {
    $_ = encode('iso-latin-1', $_);
}

... output ...
[download]

If you just want to translate,

use Encode qw( from_to );

... input ...

foreach ($hardwareValue1, $hardwareValue2) {
    $_ = from_to($_, 'UTF-8', 'iso-latin-1');
}

... output ...
[download]

If a given char doesn't exist in iso-latin-1, you'll get a ? instead.

Remember, when you read in something, it is encoded. Convert it to characters before working on it. When you need to write something, it needs to be encoded.