To All: Several days ago I made a post somewhat in jest about being able to control your trains using a Smartphone APP under the Virtually Real post started by Coonskin. There was some interest as to what this was so I did find the actual link on the JMRI site that shows a picture of the screen on the phone. Looks pretty neat! As an update to my other post, I have yet to share this picture with my wife who's phone it would need to be loaded on. Furthermore, I haven's seen the phone laying around since I told her about it initially. I guess I could call the number to determine where she is hiding it! Anyway, here is the link to the picture and further description of how it works: http://jmri.sourceforge.net/help/en/package/jmri/jmrit/withrottle/UserInterface.shtml
I'm all over this. I had no idea the android was now included. I have all the equipment needed to make this work and I will keep the group posted on my progress and outcome.
Howard: Please do! I'm sure that there are others besides me that would like to hear how this all works and how easy (or complicated) it was to implement once you give it a try. Thanks in advance.
My wife and daughter have iPhones and I have all the other hardware but I can't get them to download WiThrottle to let me set it up to document the process. My Blackberry won't cut the mustard. If you need any assistance, Howard, don't hestitate to PM me with your phone number - I'll be glad to help.
I finaly completed the WiFi throttle project and it does work. I'm not sure I would recommend this unless you have all the hardware. The throttle works but the slider bar is not very precise in controlling speed. It does allow controlling of two addresses and all of the functions. The range is whatever the routers is and that's my entire house. If I wanted to I could start a train from my desk. However it was quite the project. To start with I had no layout set up. I set everything up on a ping pong table I had in the garage. So to make a long story short here's what I did. I have a Digitrax Zephyr system with a radio throttle and loconet set up. I use a RR-CirKits LocoBuffer-USB to connect my Dell Netbook to the Digitrax loconet. I had to install the JMRI software and drivers on the netbook but we wont get into that. After using all my techo patience I was able to get the netbook to control trains. The JMRI software does a good job of broadcasting the IP address. I started the JMRI Engine Driver app on the phone and once you remember to turn on the Andriods WiFi it picks up the IP address. I used 926 as the test engine and so it selected it and held my breath. I hit forward and moved the slider bar and low and behold 926 took off. I hit stop and it stopped. I tapped reverse and it backed up. It was working. I spent the next hour seeing how far I could get away from the router and still control. My next project will be to control via the server and internet...that might be far enough So if you have all the stuff go for it and use that phone for something more than Angry Birds!
