Does the Lionel bluetooth app access all Legacy Visionline engine functions?

The Bluetooth app is limited in the Legacy features it controls.   You'll have to wait for the Base3 and associated app to control all the features.  Your MTH interface to TMCC will work for now.

It's not terrible really. You can access the 5 different whistles and bells if your engine has them, something I don't think a TMCC interface is capable of. 

If the engine has Bluetooth onboard, you can operate it with the LionChief Plus app but functionality will be very limited - about the same as with the Harry Potter train. The iCab app looks like it will provide full functionality for Legacy engines once the Base3 is available.

Thanks to all who replied.   95% of my collection is MTH.   However, after seeing what a great job Norm did weathering his B&O EM-1 I knew I had to add one to my roster.  Adding TMCC to my DCS was inexpensive and easy.  I like my MTH PS2 Class A but the Visionline version features are too nice to resist.

So it sounds like I can access some, not all functions.   But once the Cab 3 base comes out I'll be able to access all functions plus control my TMCC engines from one app.  Perhaps that will offer simpler operation controlling my Lionel engines with my tablet and my MTH engines with my DCS app on phone.   Too bad Cab3 wont control DCS.   Between the two apps (LionChief and DCS) I like how the LionChief app is laid out in landscape form with a slider for throttle.   I occasionally touch the right side of the DCS app speedometer sending the engine into full speed (if I havent already set a reasonable speed limit)

@Norm Charbonneau posted:

It's not terrible really. You can access the 5 different whistles and bells if your engine has them, something I don't think a TMCC interface is capable of.

Sure it can.  Just press AUX1 and then the whistle, it will cycle through the choices.  Repeat that key sequence to step to the next whistle.  Same with the bell choices only you have to press the bell button.

@Obsidian posted:

Too bad Cab3 wont control DCS.

I would say sure, not a commercial product, but open source has made this possible to control MTH from Legacy, and so no logical reason why the same code, the same logic could not support the function with CAB3 app with either CAB3 base, or Legacy base + wifi.

https://ogrforum.com/...ote-proof-of-concept

My bad - didn’t know TMCC could access selectable bells and whistles!

As Vernon states, a hobbyist link from Legacy to DCS as described by Professor Chaos is possible.  MTH has never published it's command interface and protocols, whereas Lionel published the TMCC protocol with the initial release of the Cab1 and Base, and subsequently published the TMCC2/Legacy/LCS protocols in DevPartner documents.  I don't know whether MTH patents (and potential enforcement) would preclude a commercial Legacy to DCS link, but as Professor Chaos says, "Providing full control of DCS engines with the Legacy remote will require mapping many more Legacy commands to a corresponding DCS command sequence – and some of them, like sound commands, do not have a simple DCS equivalent."  Serious effort to reverse engineer the DCS command interface would be needed.  Since you need both sets of base hardware to use both systems, having two remotes, or just the MTH remote, is a lot simpler than building a complete Cab2 control of MTH engines based on an undocumented interface.

@Norm Charbonneau posted:

My bad - didn’t know TMCC could access selectable bells and whistles!

I wasn't 100% sure, so I went and tried it.

FWIW, you can't change the class light or marker light color using TMCC, you need the Legacy CAB2 or the App to control those.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

FWIW, you can't change the class light or marker light color using TMCC, you need the Legacy CAB2 or the App to control those.

GRJ, can you change the lights with the app?

I have a Legacy Camelback defaulted to green and a Legacy 4-6-0 defaulted to white. No way to change them from what I can figure out using the app.

The app does do more than people realize. There are a lot of Legacy sounds with the app but they are random instead of being able to create them on command.

The smoke intensity levels are not available but defaulted to "high" which I like.

Well, one manual I read said you need the app or a CAB2 to change the lights.  I've only used the CAB2, I don't have an iPhone.

Hitting 'Set' then 'Whistle' on a Cab-1L will switch between normal and "quillable" modes.  How well it works is a matter of opinion.