This may be old news for some about the Lionel Bluetooth operation of FlyerChief engines.
Yesterday I had the opportunity to run my S scale Frisco Northern with the Bluetooth LionChief APP. My friend had an iPhone (I don't have one) on which he downloaded the free APP from the Apple APP store. (The APP for Android phones is coming soon Lionel says).
In about a minute he had the APP on his phone. I powered up the track the Northern was on, it's headlight blinked (searching for a controller) for about 3 seconds and then linked up with the iPhone.
What fun! The APP offers far more control of the engine than the remote included with the engine. I don't remember all the actions possible but I was able to run the engine F and R with a slide throttle, sound the bell, whistle, and announcements, adjust the tone of the whistle , adjust the volume of sounds individually, turn the smoke on or off and maybe a few others I have forgotten. While the APP was in operation the remote was non-functional. As soon as the APP was turned off the engine again began searching for a controller and then the remote (when turned on) would resume operation of the engine.
I see this enhancement as a big plus for S scale. I'm now thinking of buying a tablet to operate all the Flyerchief engines I own or will own in the future. Operating the engine on a small screen was sort of cramped but a tablet would give a larger area to operate on. Since I am the epitome of frugal I'm going to wait for the Android APP as Android hardware is usually cheaper than Apple products. Switching between engines will be easy. There will be no need to juggle multiple remotes even including the Lionel Universal remote. The pictograph icons on the screen are apparently fool-proof as even I could understand them. I will no longer have to have my 3 year old Grandson explain newfangled things to me.
If you have occasion to try this APP with either S or O scale you will see just how easy it is. This may be the future of engine control for those with shallow pockets. If Lionel develops a Bluetooth-Legacy software bridge of some sort perhaps all of your command engines will become operational without the need for expensive remotes.
Mark
