Hornby 2023 - Bluetooth decoders and control system

[Kaput]

The capital letter is important with the z21/Z21. The small z is the lower end starter version (and its white). The capital Z is the full function all singing all dancing version (and its black).

[NotofthiscenturyTim]

22 hours ago, WIMorrison said:

Lenz specified the XpressNet standard many, many years ago and there are several manufacturers who abide by the standard - unfortunately Hornby is not one of them, hence the interoperability issues that are seen when trying to expand Hornby command stations with products that expect and require the full implementation of the XpressNet standard.

How myopic of Hornby. 

They've got a really unique, market-leading product in the HM7000 sound decoders. Reprogrammable over the air from a phone and around £50 retail.

If they put resource into developing sound profiles for the UK and beyond and marketing them aggressively to the enthusiast audience they could probably crush the independent electronics specialist DCC companies who are stuck back in the 2000s.

It's ridiculous that something as simple these days as a loco sound decoder should need proprietary hardware to reprogramme it. As far as I can see the sound decoder companies deliberately make it as complicated as possible to change profiles as a way of maintaining barriers to entry for anything more modern. 

It's a market which seems ripe for some disruption and Hornby could do it if they wanted to. 

They could licence the sound profile spec of HM7000 so that developers could create sound files. That would eliminate the bottleneck of sound file production which Hornby are currently doing in house and massively widen the market for the product. 

This of course assumes that Hornby are actually developing the HM7000 decoders themselves and haven't outsourced it to a DCC specialist company with a lot of strings attached, to prevent Hornby from threatening that specialist company too much. 

[NotofthiscenturyTim]

22 hours ago, The Meerkat said:

 

nice

 

i am looking at z21 but that ages away at the mo, cant afford £500 where as my elite still works and with the dongle be able to use my tablet

I use DCC-EX. It's completely free software which runs on an Arduino which is a mini computer for electronics projects and costs about £10. Total cost of the system which allows tablet and phone control was £20. 

[The Meerkat]

5 minutes ago, NotofthiscenturyTim said:

 

They could licence the sound profile spec of HM7000 so that developers could create sound files. That would eliminate the bottleneck of sound file production which Hornby are currently doing in house and massively widen the market for the product. 

This of course assumes that Hornby are actually developing the HM7000 decoders themselves and haven't outsourced it to a DCC specialist company with a lot of strings attached, to prevent Hornby from threatening that specialist company too much. 

 

that what i said while back,  if Hornby did this  and i could add my accurascale sound, legomanbiffo etc etc, i would go full Bluetooth,  but i wont replace accurascale and legomanbiffo sound for Hornby sound so i got to wait for the dongle,   someone also said on this thread unless Hornby do that  hm7000 will die,   and i bet others are already trying to make the decoder or something work  

[The Meerkat]

4 minutes ago, NotofthiscenturyTim said:

I use DCC-EX. It's completely free software which runs on an Arduino which is a mini computer for electronics projects and costs about £10. Total cost of the system which allows tablet and phone control was £20. 

 

ohhh i never heard of that,  have you got a link

[NotofthiscenturyTim]

5 minutes ago, The Meerkat said:

 

ohhh i never heard of that,  have you got a link

Sure. https://dcc-ex.com/

[WIMorrison]

52 minutes ago, NotofthiscenturyTim said:

It's ridiculous that something as simple these days as a loco sound decoder should need proprietary hardware to reprogramme it.

you clearly do not understand how complex a decoder is, and understand even less about the complexity of sound decoders, let alone the difficulty in creating the sound projects for them.

 

All manufacturers want to keep their system totally proprietary and have no intention of ever letting anyone else into their ecosystem.

 

And as for Hornby? A producer of niche product for a limited market with a  geographically limited audience - it ain’t going to become a global sensation, even with all the brands under Hornby ownership.

[cravensdmufan]

43 minutes ago, WIMorrison said:

you clearly do not understand how complex a decoder is, and understand even less about the complexity of sound decoders

Ooh, how your phraseology reminds me of my schoolmaster 50 years ago 😉

[NotofthiscenturyTim]

1 hour ago, WIMorrison said:

you clearly do not understand how complex a decoder is, and understand even less about the complexity of sound decoders, let alone the difficulty in creating the sound projects for them.

 

All manufacturers want to keep their system totally proprietary and have no intention of ever letting anyone else into their ecosystem.

 

And as for Hornby? A producer of niche product for a limited market with a  geographically limited audience - it ain’t going to become a global sensation, even with all the brands under Hornby ownership.

Loco decoders without sound are completely commoditised at this point. Available for under £15 retail. 

Unsurprising given the underlying tech is simple - motor control and lighting. All things you can do with high school electronics project hardware combined with the open source libraries for DCC.

The only thing a sound decoder does is play sound files triggered by a few inputs, either functions or speed changes. Not really rocket science if you compare them to the capabilites of other consumer electronics products at a fraction of the price. E.g. That £2 greetings card that plays Happy Birthday isn't fundamentally that different. The sound decoder plays more tunes but that's about it. 

It's in the manufacturers' interests to maintain that decoders, especially sound decoders, are super complex and special - an excellent way of maintaining margin.

On to decoder hardware. The only reason why loco decoders haven't been reproduced using open source hardware is that they need to be miniaturised to fit in the loco and that currently means bespoke boards. 

DIY accessory decoders on the other hand are easy to produce using an Arduino for under £5. A fraction of the price of the commercial "model railway specific" products. 

I still think that Hornby have an unusually competitive product in the HM7000 sound decoders as they're fully reprogrammable over Bluetooth. Sadly Hornby are probably are too much of a bit player to exploit it to the max.

[E100]

2 hours ago, NotofthiscenturyTim said:

It's a market which seems ripe for some disruption and Hornby could do it if they wanted to. 

I entirely agree. The decoder market is relatively stagnant compared to other tech sectors and the fundamentals are not that complex compared to many other consumer electronics.
 

Hornby have a great product with plenty of potential. I don’t think anyone could accuse them of not bringing an innovate product to market either. However, I fear the only way that potential will be realised will be by them looking beyond the four walls of Margate to the wider market. To date that hasn’t been their strong suit but times are changing.

 

I also worry somewhat about the long term viability of the Hornby App. Hornby is not too big to fail and indeed the financial situation isn’t as strong as it could be. Were the worst to happen (and I sincerely hope it doesn’t) this would make me hesitate before making the switch completely.

 

What I hope it does do is encourage the likes of ESU and Zimo to sit and take notice whilst an open standard that can allow for interoperability and different apps to be used is developed such that the long term investment in hardware by the likes of us can be more robustly justified.

[NotofthiscenturyTim]

8 minutes ago, E100 said:

I entirely agree. The decoder market is relatively stagnant compared to other tech sectors and the fundamentals are not that complex compared to many other consumer electronics.
 

Hornby have a great product with plenty of potential. I don’t think anyone could accuse them of not bringing an innovate product to market either. However, I fear the only way that potential will be realised will be by them looking beyond the four walls of Margate to the wider market. To date that hasn’t been their strong suit but times are changing.

 

I also worry somewhat about the long term viability of the Hornby App. Hornby is not too big to fail and indeed the financial situation isn’t as strong as it could be. Were the worst to happen (and I sincerely hope it doesn’t) this would make me hesitate before making the switch completely.

 

What I hope it does do is encourage the likes of ESU and Zimo to sit and take notice whilst an open standard that can allow for interoperability and different apps to be used is developed such that the long term investment in hardware by the likes of us can be more robustly justified.

Agreed. If Hornby go bust I'd lose the ability to reprogramme the sound over Bluetooth but could carry on using the decoder indefinitely in DCC mode.

That's pretty much the same as what would happen if any other decoder manufacturer went bust - I wouldn't be able to download their sound profiles and reprogramme using their bespoke hardware programmer either.

So I see the HM7000 app and ability to reprogramme the decoder over the air as an additional extra which no other manufacturer offers. 

[E100]

16 minutes ago, NotofthiscenturyTim said:

Agreed. If Hornby go bust I'd lose the ability to reprogramme the sound over Bluetooth but could carry on using the decoder indefinitely in DCC mode.

That's pretty much the same as what would happen if any other decoder manufacturer went bust - I wouldn't be able to download their sound profiles and reprogramme using their bespoke hardware programmer either.

So I see the HM7000 app and ability to reprogramme the decoder over the air as an additional extra which no other manufacturer offers. 

 

That is a fair point well made.

[Pmorgancym]

I think the use if the word Alien to describe other controllers in the market is indicative of Hornby's siege mentality 

Edited January 22 by Pmorgancym

[GenericRMWebUsername]

6 hours ago, Pmorgancym said:

I think the use if the word Alien to describe other controllers in the market is indicative of Hornby's siege mentality 

I wouldn't read too much into it. The very fact that Hornby is shipping a dongle that works with other controllers on the market would seem to counter that notion. They're just being very careful not to promise that this product will work with every controller out there. Interoperability is nice, but it's not their core objective currently. Suppose one controller is an edge case where for whatever reason the app and controller are having difficulties interfacing. Hornby would have to chase down a copy of that controller and then spend precious time and money trying to trouble shoot the problem instead of developing features and fixing bugs that the vast majority of users are more interested in. There's an element of "try controlling this through the dongle at your own risk." By contrast, they are willing to support their existing Hornby DCC user base because they have internal access to controllers and it's just good form to support your existing customers. 

 

We're a year into this project and great progress has been made. We have to keep our expectations reasonable. My expectations for Hornby are that they continue to develop new features (which they are), continue to add new locomotive profiles (which they are), and that they listen to feedback (which they are). As long as they do that, they're on track. 

 

[RedgateModels]

1 hour ago, GenericRMWebUsername said:

I wouldn't read too much into it. The very fact that Hornby is shipping a dongle that works with other controllers on the market would seem to counter that notion. They're just being very careful not to promise that this product will work with every controller out there. Interoperability is nice, but it's not their core objective currently. Suppose one controller is an edge case where for whatever reason the app and controller are having difficulties interfacing. Hornby would have to chase down a copy of that controller and then spend precious time and money trying to trouble shoot the problem instead of developing features and fixing bugs that the vast majority of users are more interested in. There's an element of "try controlling this through the dongle at your own risk." By contrast, they are willing to support their existing Hornby DCC user base because they have internal access to controllers and it's just good form to support your existing customers. 

 

We're a year into this project and great progress has been made. We have to keep our expectations reasonable. My expectations for Hornby are that they continue to develop new features (which they are), continue to add new locomotive profiles (which they are), and that they listen to feedback (which they are). As long as they do that, they're on track. 

 

 

All of this

[RAF96]

13 hours ago, NotofthiscenturyTim said:

Agreed. If Hornby go bust I'd lose the ability to reprogramme the sound over Bluetooth but could carry on using the decoder indefinitely in DCC mode.

That's pretty much the same as what would happen if any other decoder manufacturer went bust - I wouldn't be able to download their sound profiles and reprogramme using their bespoke hardware programmer either.

So I see the HM7000 app and ability to reprogramme the decoder over the air as an additional extra which no other manufacturer offers. 

 

Not quite so. You only need access to Hornby servers to fetch the sound profiles. Operating on bluetooth is local to you, though one wonders if the app would still function if there was no Hornby Towers server to login into to start with.

[5Dublo2]

51 minutes ago, RAF96 said:

... one wonders if the app would still function if there was no Hornby Towers server to login into to start with.

Easy to test - disable your internet connection on your phone but leave Bluetooth operational ( and make sure the HM|DCC app and possibly phone is restarted )

[miles73128]

50 minutes ago, RAF96 said:

Not quite so. You only need access to Hornby servers to fetch the sound profiles. Operating on bluetooth is local to you, though one wonders if the app would still function if there was no Hornby Towers server to login into to start with.

But in that worst case scenario (hopefully wont happen) I'd just flip all the TXS decoders to DCC and they would continue to function as any other DCC sound chip. If that were to happen, hopefully somebody else would pick up the "format" and market TXS as a discrete system in it's own right. 

[NotofthiscenturyTim]

4 hours ago, RAF96 said:

Not quite so. You only need access to Hornby servers to fetch the sound profiles. Operating on bluetooth is local to you, though one wonders if the app would still function if there was no Hornby Towers server to login into to start with.

Good point. 

The app will also probably stop working on future phones if Hornby are no longer supporting and maintaining it because the requirements of the app stores and operating systems are constantly evolving.

I'm glad that there will always be the fallback of DCC mode. 

[The Meerkat]

5 minutes ago, NotofthiscenturyTim said:

Good point. 

The app will also probably stop working on future phones if Hornby are no longer supporting and maintaining it because the requirements of the app stores and operating systems are constantly evolving.

I'm glad that there will always be the fallback of DCC mode. 

 

Hornby wont go bust, it it did it get taken over before then,  main question has already been asked above,  will Hornby keep supporting and maintaining,  who knows at moment yes in 5 years time who knows,  what is Hornby track record in that field, is it good or bad 

[E100]

Just a thought. If you were to reset the decoder what state does it reset to? Bluetooth or DCC and does it wipe the sound profile back to default?

[NotofthiscenturyTim]

Interesting to see HM7000 getting coverage beyond the UK - a thorough and balanced review from last week by LR Presse, a long established French publication. 

 

[cravensdmufan]

52 minutes ago, NotofthiscenturyTim said:

Interesting to see HM7000 getting coverage beyond the UK - a thorough and balanced review from last week by LR Presse, a long established French publication. 

 

An excellent presentation.  I like the way he demonstrated the Power Bank stay alive - first time I've seen an amphibious diesel shunter! 

 

But I wouldn't wrap the decoder in tape - if they are like TTS then they may tend to get warm.  I just use one small piece of tape (but not stuck to the decoder) to stop it touching any circuit.  Best to let air circulate IMO.

 

Great to see HM7000 in other countries.  Hope Hornby will be able to do some loco profiles for fellow overseas modellers.

Edited January 22 by cravensdmufan
Additional wording

[Baz657]

There was a period from just before Christmas and quite a few days into the new year when the Android app stopped working for many people after an app update. The timing couldn’t have been worse for so many reasons… new HM7000 locos and sets arriving (especially in TT:120), no option to speak to the app devs (as they’re always on a multi-week holiday at that time of the year), not a lot of online support (although the guys on the Hornby forum did their best).

 

How many people tried HM7000 in those two weeks, couldn’t get it to work, and have just forgotten about it? For me it’s been a great. But I started with it in the summer (using an iPad) and luckily I’m not dumb with technology. How might it have been for the mums and dads that bought their kids a Bluetooth train set for Christmas to run on a Samsung phone (other android models are available) and they couldn’t even get it to run.
 

One has to wonder who was the bright spark that authorised an app update just days before Christmas before it could have been properly tested in the void.

 

 

Edited January 22 by Baz657
Numerous

[RedgateModels]

13 hours ago, cravensdmufan said:

 

But I wouldn't wrap the decoder in tape - if they are like TTS then they may tend to get warm.  I just use one small piece of tape (but not stuck to the decoder) to stop it touching any circuit.  Best to let air circulate IMO.

sage advice for any decoder. I never put anything else around a decoder apart from any factory fitted shrink wrap. As you say, insulate the chassis/body.