Why did MTH changed the remote part # from 50-1003 to 50-1038 ?
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To charge more $$$$$$, same thing everyone else does.
According to Mr. Muffin's latest email they are doing one last run but it will have some different components in it than the original.
BradFish1 posted:According to Mr. Muffin's latest email they are doing one last run but it will have some different components in it than the original.
As someone who is considering purchasing the MTH DCS system I have to ask what is meant by "one last run". Is a brand new remote on the horizon?
Dan
geepboy posted:BradFish1 posted:According to Mr. Muffin's latest email they are doing one last run but it will have some different components in it than the original.
As someone who is considering purchasing the MTH DCS system I have to ask what is meant by "one last run". Is a brand new remote on the horizon?
Dan
No. They are discontinuing the remote in favor the WIU and smartphone app.
OK, I understand. I guess it makes sense to rely on "everyone" having some sort of a smart device - everyone except me, of course.
Dan
geepboy posted:OK, I understand. I guess it makes sense to rely on "everyone" having some sort of a smart device - everyone except me, of course.
Dan
FWIW, you are not alone. I use an iPhone and I love it. But I much prefer a dedicated remote for trains. It's the right tool for the job. After you get familiar with the remote, you can use the basic functions (like speed control) without looking at it. You cannot do that with phone or tablet. I have a back-up DCS remote already but I'll be looking for a third and maybe more.
DCS hand held being discontinued? Seems like I’ve heard that once or twice before. I haven’t seen any announcement from MTH that it’s being discontinued. Also, Part number 50-1038 came up empty at MTH.com. Seems to me if they are going to the trouble of making a new remote with some new parts, it wouldn’t be the last run. Even if it is, I have a spare TIU, a spare remote and a spare thumbwheel so I think I will be OK for a while.
Last October at York, I asked one of the MTH reps about the remote. He said that they were having difficulty getting some of the parts and hinted that at least one of the parts suppliers was trying to price gouge. I’ll have to stop in at their both on the 18th and see what’s up.
I asked Mike Wolf about the remote today. He said that this will indeed be the last run of the hand held remote. MTH bought up all available pieces of obsolete parts and will have another part that can no longer be obtained redesigned (he told me which one, but I don’t recall). They will make several hundred remotes, but that’s it. He hasn’t sold me yet on the WIFI, but he is getting closer. One feature I particularly like is the engine selection. I keep all my engines in the active list so it can be a pain to use the thumbwheel to select a new engine. It is a lot easier to scroll with a tablet and you see 15 locos at a time to select from.
In the latest episode of Notch 6 podcast, Andy Edleman addresses the issue in depth (for about 5 minutes). It begins about 48:00 mark. I can sum it up:
This is the last run for the remote. Get used to using a phone or tablet for DCS. The end.
Mr. Wolf makes the decision upon which his company will live or die. If he is willing to lose customers who don't have the desire to use phones/tablets or the means to do so, competitors will welcome them.
Competitors? Name one. Who else out there has a system that will play nicely with MTH locomotives? Lionel doesn't. Other than that I know of no O gauge system that is as easy as DCS or Legacy to hook up and run, that has AIU capability to run switches, fastrack switches. Lionel at last check only runs lionel loves. Please advise
Locomotives, not loves. Darn autocorrect.
I'm okay with this since I have enough remotes and spare thumbwheels to last me forever. BUT AND HOWEVER...if they ever release a software update that will only work with the wifi then I will be howling. "Oh do you want that feature? Then upgrade to the wifi!" Or maybe a TIU update that limits the TIU to wifi-only operation. I would regard this kind of thing as an unfriendly act!
Don
Don Merz 070317 posted:I'm okay with this since I have enough remotes and spare thumbwheels to last me forever. BUT AND HOWEVER...if they ever release a software update that will only work with the wifi then I will be howling. "Oh do you want that feature? Then upgrade to the wifi!" Or maybe a TIU update that limits the TIU to wifi-only operation. I would regard this kind of thing as an unfriendly act!
Don
Don, I don't ever see this happening. The last firmware update for the remote was a big nothing burger. The only change for the remote when you upgrade from firmware 6.00 to 6.10 was firmware version number when you power on the screen. It was done merely to aviod confusion to the end user that the TIU was on 6.1 and the remote was on 6.0.
I suspect that future updates for the remote will follow this path. If there are no actually changes to the DCS remote software, MTH will still issue an update that only changes that number you see when you power on the remote to ensure it matches the TIU.
I'm with Mike H. I too, much prefer using a handheld device vs a phone. Been on the forum only sporadically in recent months and wonder if there was much discussion on the topic of the planned discontinuance of the MTH handheld?
Enough to fill the daily trash train from NYC south
I was OK with dial phones, bias-ply tires, and drum brakes. Would I go back? Of course not.
Try it. You don't need a home computer or network. Instead of a $200 remote, you use a $30 tablet with a one-time fee of $25 for the app (covers all of your current and future devices). When your "remote" stops working or gets dropped - go buy another one for $30. Visiting a layout and want to run trains but the host doesn't have enough remotes? - whip out your tablet. And don't forget that the tablet display is a million times easier for our old eyes to read.
If anyone wants to quit using DCS because of wi-fi, please contact me and I'll buy your "useless" MTH locos. At a bargain price, of course.
I'd rather sell the useless WIUs, but not at a bargain price.
Mallard4468 posted:I was OK with dial phones, bias-ply tires, and drum brakes. Would I go back? Of course not.
Try it. You don't need a home computer or network. Instead of a $200 remote, you use a $30 tablet with a one-time fee of $25 for the app (covers all of your current and future devices). When your "remote" stops working or gets dropped - go buy another one for $30. Visiting a layout and want to run trains but the host doesn't have enough remotes? - whip out your tablet. And don't forget that the tablet display is a million times easier for our old eyes to read.
If anyone wants to quit using DCS because of wi-fi, please contact me and I'll buy your "useless" MTH locos. At a bargain price, of course.
You've made some good points I've never considered. I did need to purchase a new remote just recently ($150 ouch). Thanks for your insight.
Ok. Book work is done, supper is eaten, and now I can finally get back to this.
Mallard does make some good points. Thanks to a guy a Mr. Muffins trains I learned something, today, that I didn't know about WIFI DCS. WIFI has always meant Internet to me. If you buy something with WIFI capability, it means you have access to the net. I have Hughes Net satellite Internet. I live in the country. In this case that does not mean the United States, it means the boonies, the sticks, the "rural route" as John Cougar so eloquently sung it. We don't have city internet. We do finally have city water, but we still have to either use a MIFI card via Verizon cell service, or, satellite fed internet. Cell tower fed internet is subject to the same sketchy service our cell phones get, and satellite is a thunderstorms B word. Not to mention a metered service where over use leads to no gigabytes and extra money to keep going.
I found out from the Mr. Muffin guy that WIFI doesn't mean this in the DCS world. At least that's what he told me. He explained that the WIFI unit broadcasts its own network so you can connect directly to it without having to have internet in your home or even connect to the internet.
This being the case my view of using a cell phone or tablet to run my trains has changed. I have asked the question, why would you want to run your trains from Hawaii? Opening the front door for the UPS guy is one thing, but connecting to your WIFI to run a train? Turns out I was way off. I'm still fuzzy about it, but it sounds like once you buy the app and download it to your phone or tablet, you can connect via wifi on your phone or tablet to the DCS component and using the digital remote screen, operate your layout. No worries about using up minutes or gigs.
My biggest problem was running trains and getting a phone call, or text, or email, or suddenly losing signal. My train room is encased in concrete. I can't get any signal in there. Even if I did get a call it wouldn't come through. So no sudden issues with two trains headed for each other and just as I try to remedy the situation, mom calls.
This new information makes a tablet look even better. For $75 bucks I get a tablet, with wifi connection. I use my home internet to find and download the app. I download the app. Now that I have the app, I go to my train room, bring up the app, turn my tablet wifi on, the tablet and the wifi unit talk to each other, and when I select engine 1, press start, it starts. Just like the hand held remote we are using now. I don't plan to go wifi if I don't have too, but if some day my remote stops working, a series of buttons stop working or become intermittent, and no one has the parts to repair it. I'll stop using Band-Aid and duct tape methods to fix it, and go wifi with a tablet. The kicker is that I think you have to have a REV L TIU? One with a USB port? I'm showing my ignorance here because I have never used it or seen it used. The jist of this is that now that I know I don't have to worry about internet access to run my trains, I can see myself using WIFI control at some point. But only when I'm forced to change. Until then I am going to rely on my 1980's looking television remote with the soft buttons, the green screen, and yes, the four AAA batteries that usually run out in about a month.
I'm glad this thread started. I learned something once again thanks to the O gauge forum. Thanks. Now if I can just get my F5 button and my zero button to work normally again, I'll go back to running trains.
The thing I don't understand is Lionel stayed with there command remote and still is using it especially for vision line locomotives you have full access to all there special features! so why did MTH give up on making remotes I know that some parts are no longer available but they could if they wanted to build a new one with new design that uses the latest parts available! FWIW!
Alan Mancus posted:The thing I don't understand is Lionel stayed with there command remote and still is using it especially for vision line locomotives you have full access to all there special features! so why did MTH give up on making remotes I know that some parts are no longer available but they could if they wanted to build a new one with new design that uses the latest parts available! FWIW!
I suspect Lionel will do the same before they build another version of the remote.
It's not impossible to design, engineer, and produce a new remote. All it takes is money. Unlike my Uncle Sam, MTH probably doesn't have an unlimited supply of other people's money.
Yardmaster96 posted:Ok. Book work is done, supper is eaten, and now I can finally get back to this.
This new information makes a tablet look even better. For $75 bucks I get a tablet, with wifi connection. I use my home internet to find and download the app. I download the app. Now that I have the app, I go to my train room, bring up the app, turn my tablet wifi on, the tablet and the wifi unit talk to each other, and when I select engine 1, press start, it starts. Just like the hand held remote we are using now. I don't plan to go wifi if I don't have too, but if some day my remote stops working, a series of buttons stop working or become intermittent, and no one has the parts to repair it. I'll stop using Band-Aid and duct tape methods to fix it, and go wifi with a tablet. The kicker is that I think you have to have a REV L TIU? One with a USB port? I'm showing my ignorance here because I have never used it or seen it used. The jist of this is that now that I know I don't have to worry about internet access to run my trains, I can see myself using WIFI control at some point. But only when I'm forced to change. Until then I am going to rely on my 1980's looking television remote with the soft buttons, the green screen, and yes, the four AAA batteries that usually run out in about a month.
I'm glad this thread started. I learned something once again thanks to the O gauge forum. Thanks. Now if I can just get my F5 button and my zero button to work normally again, I'll go back to running trains.
The issues we've discovered with the "App" verses the "Remote" is you can't operate by feel anymore.
Looking at the screen is required and may require flipping to another screen.
Agree, Bobby. Hard to flip around among screens when a few locos are whizzing along on intersecting routes.
With absolutely no familiarity with Smart remotes, I will use that to differentiate between the plastic television remote, another coined phrase, and the cell or tablet remote. Again, no familiarity with the smart remote other than pictures in Barry's book and on the owners manual of the DCS book. I did not know that screens were involved. I agree that the television remote has better feel in that you can train your brain to find raised rubber buttons quickly, and since each rubber button does what it says it does, you can train the trust centered section of your brain to believe that it did what it said it would do when you pushed it. Meaning, I can look at a loco, and without paying any attention to the remote, find the 3 button, push it, and trust that the horn won't blow. If it does, then I know immediately without looking that I missed the 3 and hit the Whistle/Horn button by mistake. The buttons never move. ACC, SW, 1-9 and 0, all just sit in their designed spot waiting to be pushed. The whiz wheel is always where it is supposed to be and rolls up or down accordingly. I have increased and decreased speed without ever looking at the screen, counting up or down with each movement of the wheel.
HOWEVER. Sorry. I felt like I had put you to sleep so I had to throw a haymaker. Rubber buttons wear out. How do I know this? My F5 soft key and my 0 (zero) buttons are starting, in one case the engine has fully revved to critical RPM, to stop working. I can no longer trust the zero to activate when I press it, so when I select switch 10 from the list by using 1 0 as a search method, many times I have never moved, it just sits there at switch 1. I quickset a loco to 10 smph, it slows to 1. Instead of pushing the 0 I have to press the 0. F5 is the worst. In the switch world, F5 is your curved or open button. It makes the switch turn out so the engine can exit one track to another. Lately I have held it down for over 10 seconds before the switch opens. F4 is the straight thru arrow. I simply push it once and the switch closes. F5 used to work that way, but not now. Once I've opened or closed a switch a few times, the F5 "warms up?" and begins to work faster but not immediately. I need my buttons to work fast, especially switch operation buttons. I don't want to have to slow a train to 2 miles per hour just so I can have plenty of time to wait for the switch to open.
I was about to buy a new remote, when I found out that MTH had upgraded, sort of, the remote we are all talking about. Not to mention spilled the beans that this was the last time they were going to pay any attention to this remote. If it quits working, and there are no replacements for sale, ebay or otherwise, you're just S out of luck. I fully understand why. It's not just money. That is a big reason, but in my humble, uninformed, and completely jake leg opinion, Mike and the Train House are looking to the future, and the future is SMART.
Television remotes, I know this because I have one, for smart tv's are bare bones volume up, volume down, and a menu button that let's you gain access to all of the internet choices you have. I'm surprised with how much we paid for this thing, it even supports over the air antenna channels. But it does. Again, I live in the sticks. I can't go full blown SMART. I have to have my Directv and my antenna channels. But, sooner or later the broadcast world will find a way to phase out antenna. It's easy, stop supporting it. Ok. That said. Mike and MTH are doing just that. In order to get customers to "give up the pacifier", they are drawing a line in the sand. This is it. When these remotes die out or quit working, by attrition, we will all be forced to either go SMART or pack up the trains and make them fond memories. As long as the "dumb remote", no offense intended, exists, we will use it over upgraded modern technology. Regardless of it's problems, quirks, and work arounds, WIFI and whatever they come up with in the future, providing Model Railroads have one, is what the industry will want their customers to migrate towards. Continuing to build steam engines because some railroads weren't sold on the whole diesel thing, is cost prohibitive at some point. So to get the railroads to go diesel, they phased out steam. You don't see dial activated microwaves anymore do you. Retro ones that only a few people might want. Analog televisions aren't exactly on sale at Walmart anymore.
Model Trains are hard enough sell these days. Even DCC for the HO industry as labor intensive as it appears to be, I watched a video, is still a remote system. You don't see too many model train companies pushing the latest and greatest transformer as a means of running twelve trains. Granted they still make the big Z4000's and many a layout is still going today using a transformer as its primary means of electrical supply. But once DCS and Legacy and the other methods of remote control hit the market, it became the primary means of train operation. Now it, like the industry itself is growing and changing and one of the changes is how you manage it. Dumb remotes are being phased out for Smart remotes. If we last another 20 years, you'll probably start seeing voice activated make its way onto the stage. Then you can expect hand held anything to go away.
It's just progress and the need to finally phase the old way out so the new way can prosper.
Just my opinion, long winded as it usually is
Smarty-pants phone or tablet is not going to work EVER for me because switching pike. I must have eyes on the train, not on a screen. I use a Remote Commander (which really does look like a teevee remote 
). It works fine because there is only ever going to be one engine running at a time on the Plywood Empire Route. Cheep, cheep, also too. 
I'd like to see a survey:
If you could use your phone/tablet to remote control your TV with a discount for no dedicated remote provided, would you use it instead of a dedicated remote?
Odds are that very few consumers would opt to use their phone instead... IMHO. (ps. you can do that now)
I control my TV (and my trains) with a dedicated remote - and I don't look at the remote to use it!
Grumble, grumble...
My two cents, literally, because I have two layouts. One is a large table layout that runs 9 trains at a time, two of 5 mains being DCS. The other is a ceiling layout that runs 4 MTH engines on two mains, and is completely DCS.
I agree with Lew and RJR, and I usually do. I want my eyes on the trains, and, as Yardmaster says, you can train your brain to manipulate the handheld remote to work without looking at it.
I have two DCS remotes, one for each layout. Love 'em. Thinking about ordering one more, you know, in case.....
Jerry
I like the survey question. EddieM hit the nail on the head. If you had the choice between a cell phone or tablet operated TV remote, which is possible for some televisions by the way, friend of mine told me it was. I would take the dedicated remote hands down. In the case of DCS and Legacy, as long as Mike and Lionel keep making them, and as long as my guy at the train store trained to maintenance them keeps maintaining them and can get parts, I will stick with the dedicated remote.
But as Bob Dylan so poetically whined, I mean sung, "the times they are a changin'". And there is no good answer. Both methods have their merits, both have their problems. Both methods have their advocates and detractors. I like to think of myself as one who tries to see both sides while wanting to keep one. As I mentioned in my last book.....self deprecating humor as to the length of my last reply, rubber buttons versus flat screen, rubber buttons win every time with me. They are raised, separated, and as I said, experience is a great teacher when it comes to repetitive moves. Flat screens feel the same regardless of where you touch them or what you touch. I have no problem typing on a keyboard but ask me to do this same thing I am doing right now on a cell phone keyboard and I will OMG, FWIW, LMAO, and IMHO you to the point where you can't understand a dern thing I am saying. Autocorrect is nice in a suck pond water kind of way. I don't need my phone telling me that DCS should have been duck.
In the case of running trains, I need to be able to glance at the remote, while watching the train. I can run four trains at once on my layout. There is a lot of switching I have to do in order to make that happen. Having a stuck F5 button that refuses to open a switch when I need it open, doesn't bode well for my less than two year old usage dedicated remote. Having a whiz wheel that suddenly goes from 18 smph to 85 smph without notice or warning as you are slowly trying to exit a train from one track to another only to have it suddenly blast off like a Saturn V rocket. A 4 and a 0 that refuse to type when you need it too. Makes a train going 35 smph slam on the brakes when you Quickset, type 45, and find out you just typed 5. So nice as the dedicated may be, they do wear out. In my case a lot faster than I thought it would. I started this adventure in 2017, finally got to use my remote in December of 2018, and it's now December of 2019 and it is suffering from button stick, wheel insanity, and boycotts opening my switches until it is good and ready to do so. F4 still closes or straightens them without any problem. Supposedly my guy at the train store can clean and repair it.
But, it is a dedicated remote, not a cell phone or tablet. I use my cell phone every day. That means battery life suffers. I watch videos on it. I smart view them to my new smart tv. Battery life suffers. So I am ready to run my trains, and I go downstairs to my train room and I fire up a locomotive with my cell phone and up pops the ever present warning sign, battery at 15%, connect to charger. Luckily I can't get cell signal in my train room, so phone calls and texts are not an issue. I have large thumbs. So I attempt to select train 1 or switch 19, or I try to increase speed slowly with the dial or maybe a slide bar. I went for train 1, got train 2 instead because they are right together. Wanted to go 35 and wound up going 85. Set the phone down, watched the train for a bit, looked at the screen, it timed out and went dark. Screen lock rears its ugly head.
What's the solution? Hope that the end of the dedicated remote is like these shows about the end of the earth. We watch for 55 minutes being told when it happens it will be horrible, painful, and slow, only find out right before the credits run, "now, this isn't going to happen for another billion years, but it is going to happen."
The designated remote is an integral part of DCS; even if it's a "loss-leader," I hope MTH reconsiders their decision to discontinue it. With the announcement that this is the last run of remotes, there appears to be a bit of scrambling to buy them up before they're gone; if that is in fact the case, that ought to tell MTH leadership that there is still demand for them. If the only option to run MTH trains in command mode is with a phone, then the number of DCS-equipped locos in my fleet will stay right where it is.
John
I don't think it needs an "active" phone.
Interesting. I would have said Fascinating but that would have been too Mr. Spock for my taste. That makes complete sense on one hand in that tablets do not have to be connected to any sort of information source to work. You can get one of those gigantic screen tablets and as long as it has wifi connectivity, you can surf the net, find the app, download the app, install the app, and run your trains. Problem is you have this mini television you have to lug around the room punching icons on a screen and tripping over your layout because you have to pay so much attention to the screen. It doesn't compute on the other hand because, and this is my take on it, why would anyone buy a $500 smart phone and not put in a sim card to use it as an active phone? I guess my inexperience is not letting me fully understand the definition of inactive phone. To further that, if you want to go wifi and want to be able to use an inactive android or apple device, why buy a $500 inactive smart phone when you can buy a $200 tablet with a bigger screen. Either way, and I'm just going to say it, wifi train operation is fancy and cool, but unless it answers some of the pitfalls of what we already suffer using the hand held, it isn't worth the time, effort or money, what with having to buy a REV L TIU, a tablet if you wish, and switch to a flat, hard to navigate screen, versus raised rubber buttons that are easy to navigate but do wear out over time.
Pitfall
1. A tiny monochrome LCD screen that lists up to three items at a time, maybe four, that forces you to either scroll up or down several times to find the switch, engine, or menu selection you wish to use.
2. Numbers next to each engine or switch that may or may not let you quick find the engine or switch you wish to use. Depending on how fast you punch the 1 and the 5, you may get switch 15 on the list, or just switch 5, or just remain at 1. Don't hold me to this but number punch doesn't work for engines. Maybe it does, I only have 6.
3. The inability to select and open, or close, random switches all at once. You have to open switch 6, then wait for the remote to finish and return to the menu, then you can open switch 7, etc.etc.etc. Get ahead of it, get impatient, and you think you switched back to the engine, but when it doesn't respond to any commands, you look down and discover you are still on the switch menu.
4. The for some reason dumb idea programming that makes the Accel and Decel rate bump up 2 notches after a succession of 3 increased speeds. Translation- I use the boost button to accelerate the engines speed, much like a real engineer would do. It's going 10 miles per hour. I press the boost end of the rocker button. 11,12,13,15,17,19,21...…..I let off the button. I press it again. 22,23,24,26,28,30.....What gives? I set my accel and decal rate to 1. A tech guy at MTH told me that it was programmed to do that. Why? If I wanted a 2 increment rate, I would select 2 and lock it in.
5. The harum scarum flakey activity of that selector wheel. What I call the whiz wheel. Get too rough with it and it goes haywire. I was quickly rolling that thing up one day at what I thought was a pleasing rate of turn and suddenly my engine was going 120. Jumped from 30 to 120 in one roll.
Pitfalls. But brass tax where this subject is concerned. Television remote wins out hands down over smart remote. You can carry it in your shirt pocket. Grabbing it quickly to avoid a track based tragedy is more forgiving on a dedicated remote. Snatch a cell phone or tablet off the chair and who knows where that thing will change screens too. Remember, active or not it's a device not dedicated to the layout. Do you want to lug a suitcase sized pad around? Finally, just design it to be voice activated and ditch the remotes. Hands free, you can say what you want, just make sure the key commands appear in your sentence, speak clearly, and yes I know, not everyone can talk but they can use their hands. Just an idea.
Have small 4x8 2 loop layout dcs wired powered by several postwar zw transformers 1 for trains 1 for lights etc. Remote and tiu bought as set with 1 extra remote all bought new at same time in 2002.
Still using original remote and tiu the spare remote used once to make sure it works and put back in its package.
Never upgraded anything with exception of all engines i installed a bcr and all still work just fine with some ps2 diesel and steam and 1 ps3 engine along with many postwar and prewar trains that i run and personally maintain.
Will i buy a wifi setup and new large transformer in short no they are not needed .
As a note have nothing against the newest way to run mth trains we are all different but its a shame when a group of us are forced out of the loop (pun) by this advancement.
Yardmaster96 posted:With absolutely no familiarity with Smart remotes, I will use that to differentiate between the plastic television remote, another coined phrase, and the cell or tablet remote. Again, no familiarity with the smart remote other than pictures in Barry's book and on the owners manual of the DCS book. I did not know that screens were involved. I agree that the television remote has better feel in that you can train your brain to find raised rubber buttons quickly, and since each rubber button does what it says it does, you can train the trust centered section of your brain to believe that it did what it said it would do when you pushed it. Meaning, I can look at a loco, and without paying any attention to the remote, find the 3 button, push it, and trust that the horn won't blow. If it does, then I know immediately without looking that I missed the 3 and hit the Whistle/Horn button by mistake. The buttons never move. ACC, SW, 1-9 and 0, all just sit in their designed spot waiting to be pushed. The whiz wheel is always where it is supposed to be and rolls up or down accordingly. I have increased and decreased speed without ever looking at the screen, counting up or down with each movement of the wheel.
HOWEVER. Sorry. I felt like I had put you to sleep so I had to throw a haymaker. Rubber buttons wear out. How do I know this? My F5 soft key and my 0 (zero) buttons are starting, in one case the engine has fully revved to critical RPM, to stop working. I can no longer trust the zero to activate when I press it, so when I select switch 10 from the list by using 1 0 as a search method, many times I have never moved, it just sits there at switch 1. I quickset a loco to 10 smph, it slows to 1. Instead of pushing the 0 I have to press the 0. F5 is the worst. In the switch world, F5 is your curved or open button. It makes the switch turn out so the engine can exit one track to another. Lately I have held it down for over 10 seconds before the switch opens. F4 is the straight thru arrow. I simply push it once and the switch closes. F5 used to work that way, but not now. Once I've opened or closed a switch a few times, the F5 "warms up?" and begins to work faster but not immediately. I need my buttons to work fast, especially switch operation buttons. I don't want to have to slow a train to 2 miles per hour just so I can have plenty of time to wait for the switch to open.
I was about to buy a new remote, when I found out that MTH had upgraded, sort of, the remote we are all talking about. Not to mention spilled the beans that this was the last time they were going to pay any attention to this remote. If it quits working, and there are no replacements for sale, ebay or otherwise, you're just S out of luck. I fully understand why. It's not just money. That is a big reason, but in my humble, uninformed, and completely jake leg opinion, Mike and the Train House are looking to the future, and the future is SMART.
Television remotes, I know this because I have one, for smart tv's are bare bones volume up, volume down, and a menu button that let's you gain access to all of the internet choices you have. I'm surprised with how much we paid for this thing, it even supports over the air antenna channels. But it does. Again, I live in the sticks. I can't go full blown SMART. I have to have my Directv and my antenna channels. But, sooner or later the broadcast world will find a way to phase out antenna. It's easy, stop supporting it. Ok. That said. Mike and MTH are doing just that. In order to get customers to "give up the pacifier", they are drawing a line in the sand. This is it. When these remotes die out or quit working, by attrition, we will all be forced to either go SMART or pack up the trains and make them fond memories. As long as the "dumb remote", no offense intended, exists, we will use it over upgraded modern technology. Regardless of it's problems, quirks, and work arounds, WIFI and whatever they come up with in the future, providing Model Railroads have one, is what the industry will want their customers to migrate towards. Continuing to build steam engines because some railroads weren't sold on the whole diesel thing, is cost prohibitive at some point. So to get the railroads to go diesel, they phased out steam. You don't see dial activated microwaves anymore do you. Retro ones that only a few people might want. Analog televisions aren't exactly on sale at Walmart anymore.
Model Trains are hard enough sell these days. Even DCC for the HO industry as labor intensive as it appears to be, I watched a video, is still a remote system. You don't see too many model train companies pushing the latest and greatest transformer as a means of running twelve trains. Granted they still make the big Z4000's and many a layout is still going today using a transformer as its primary means of electrical supply. But once DCS and Legacy and the other methods of remote control hit the market, it became the primary means of train operation. Now it, like the industry itself is growing and changing and one of the changes is how you manage it. Dumb remotes are being phased out for Smart remotes. If we last another 20 years, you'll probably start seeing voice activated make its way onto the stage. Then you can expect hand held anything to go away.
It's just progress and the need to finally phase the old way out so the new way can prosper.
Just my opinion, long winded as it usually is
We tried changing the radio volume using the steering wheel buttons versus taking your eyes off the road to do it via the touch screen. The buttons strictly by feel were faster and correct every time. Attempting to find the screen you need and locate the touch button was not. And that was with the vehicle stopped.
While you may love the phone/ipad/tablet screen apps, and the manufacturers may both force us to go there, they will never replace using the remote for model train operation without having to look at it. The screens are kinda like steering a car by having to take your eyes off the road to find a screen and then adjust something.
Bobby I agree with you completely. It's not that I like or dislike the wifi way. The reply you referenced was me attempting to answer the question, "why is Mike forcing us to go wifi when we don't want too." As for my personal choice, I will lobby for the old remote any day. As you said, as I've said, as others have said, buttons versus screen icons and scrolling and looking around all over the place trying find settings and volume controls and switch and accessory controls, when you have all that in a nice raised rubber button right in front of you......kind of sounds backwards.
Not lobbying for the wifi way, but since we have been talking at length about this, I did watch an Eric's Trains episode where he demonstrated the WIFI box and how it is set up. One thing I learned, and if you already know this ignore me, you don't need a new TIU (REV L type) to operate the WIFI. Granted it needs a USB attachment on both ends, but if you buy an adapter 9 pin to USB, it works. So extra dollars spent on a new TIU is averted. I was mainly interested in how you did things. Yep, lots of screens. All the soft keys are one big screen. Depending on features and the engine you have selected, some features are washed out because they don't compute with that engine. There is no DIR button so you have to tap F if you are going backwards to stop the train, and R if you are currently going forward. Green means Forward, Orange means Backward. Speed dial has a + and - for increase and decrease. You can tap the speed you want anywhere on the dial and it will act as the quickset mode. Steam engines have a pull rope icon for the whistle and diesels have a horn icon. A big red stop sign with an white E is full stop. But, you do have to scroll down to find more stuff which means you have to scroll up to get back to where you were. Settings and soft keys and accessories and switches require complete screen changes.
The wifi unit, as I was told and now know for certain, sends out its own signal so you don't have to use your internet tokens to run a train. By tokens I mean allotted gigs for those of us unfortunate enough to have to use metered time internet providers. But for now I am sticking to my television remote with the nice buttons.
You tube has all kinds of videos on it if you just want to see what all the shouting is about.
Yardmaster96 posted:The wifi unit, as I was told and now know for certain, sends out its own signal so you don't have to use your internet tokens to run a train. By tokens I mean allotted gigs for those of us unfortunate enough to have to use metered time internet providers. But for now I am sticking to my television remote with the nice buttons.
I don't understand this comment. Any communication between the WiFi unit and your smart device would be local traffic and not have any Internet involvement. Even if you connect it to your router, which is my preferred method, there's no external network traffic from that connection.
I guess I should clarify my phobia of that.
Our Hughes Net is connected to a WIFI router in the basement that broadcasts its signal throughout the house thanks to two booster boxes strategically located in the basement and kitchen. Our printer has WIFI/cable ability, so I chose WIFI. As you know that means the printer is not connected physically to the Laptop, but connected via the magic we call WIFI. So all we have to do is tell it we want to print and it sends the spreadsheet or word document or whatever over the air to the printer and it prints. Well, in order to do that from our cell phones, we have to first turn on the WIFI on the phone. My wife did that about a month ago and printed a receipt for something she bought. She inadvertently left the wifi on, and you know Samsung and its updates. Well, Samsung dumped a football stadium load of updates down to her phone using the wifi connection rather than the cell tower connection, and when I checked our usage, I nearly had a stroke. We went from you have 89% of your minutes remaining, to 41%, and we still had 2 weeks to go before Hughes reset the meter back to 100. So we went from plenty of minutes if we needed them, to don't leave the wifi on accidentally anymore for the next two weeks.
My fear with wifi train usage was that in order for me to use it, I would have to turn on the wifi on my phone to connect to the DCS wifi and risk a data dump of updates while I was running trains. I have sense learned and wanted to share my knowledge with anyone else who might have been concerned about the same thing, that DCS' wifi box broadcasts its own signal independent of the internet, and you can connect directly to it skipping your home internet wifi connection thus there was no risk for fellow metered minute internet users to like us to worry about sudden catastrophic data usage because you ran your trains and forgot to turn off your wifi on the phone. Trust me, I know, if we leave the wifi active on our phones, Samsung will skip the cell signal and go straight for the buffet line known as wifi signal.
Thanks for asking and thanks for all your help with the switch tracks back when I was getting set up. Your information was extremely valuable.
That's a good reason to use that old phone sitting in the drawer.
