Let me tell you all about Bluetooth. My son just bought a Playstation 3 and I bought a PS3 Blu-Ray DVD Remote so we can more easely control the DVD functions when looking at movies. I tested the remote in my home.
The PS3 is located in my sons room. First I walked out of the room and entered another room, I closed the door, entered a second room, closed that door, entered a third room and pointed the remote to the stone wall, completely in the wrong direction. No problem at all to control the PS3. That made me think about bluetooth and DCC. Will this be the next step instead of IR or radio? Or is it already on the market somewhere?
I agree electrolove. There are different class levels of Blue-Tooth. The range on the highest (Class 1) is close to 100 meters and the signal passes easily through walls etc. The medical device my company sells uses a Blue-Tooth high speed serial link to transmit multiple channel of EEG (brain waves) in close to real time. I would have thought that the bandwidth for BT was more than adequate for a wireless DCC throttle. The Blue-tooth chip-sets are readily available and not overly expensive. They are relatively low power consuming chips so ideal for battery operated devices. The frequency bands for BT are well defined and I believe the same globally. It seems like a really logical approach to wireless DCC control.
One other thought that may be the downside. I believe that there are limitations on the number of BT devices that can be linked together into a mini network environment. There can be one master device (the DCC command station) and up to 7 slave devices (throttles). I understand that this to be the case, which would put severe limitations on the system for larger installations and clubs.
It is a technology that is so prevalent and so easy for developers to work with that there has to be a downside, otherwise why has it not been tried. Perhaps there are other limitations as well? I have a hard time believing that none of the DCC companies have looked into it.
I’m sure that the DCC manufacturers are experimenting with Blue Tooth as well as any other new technology that comes along – they just don’t publicize it and raise false hopes.
I wouldn’t want bluetooth for DCC. As others have said, it’s very limited by number of devices, and (im my experience) isn’t that great all the time. Granted my bluetooth experience is limited to my cell phone and my computer (which have an ecffective range of like 6 inches it feels like).
I also think that, while it is nice to have BT devices, ever since wifi has become “standard” it seems that BT has gone the way of “oh yeah, we have Bluetooth too…” and isn’t really a major selling point for the item(s) in question…
WIFI and BT are two very different beasts used for very different applications. BT is all about simple wireless connectivity between relatively dumb devices, the term they use is Personal Area Network, Cell phone to headset for example. WIFI is more aimed at true wireless network capability and has considerably more band width and is more appropriate for PC networks. A class 3 BT device only has a 1 meter range so is not very powerful. The two technologies are somewhat complimentary and often work together. A BT mouse and Keyboard connected to a WIFI enabled PC for example.
That changes things for my argument a little, although I was thinking more along the lines of those PDA-phones which have 802.11 connectivity, and will sometimes have the “oh yeah, there’s BT in here too…” type ads.
Either way, I wouldn’t be suprised if wifi (or similar) was used in DCC systems, although since there are different classes of BT, perhaps they’ll be able to use that, although the 7 device limit would be tricky I think…
Bluetooth would be great for dcc systems. As its been said wi-fi and bluetooth (BT) are totally different systems. Think of wifi as wireless ethernet, and bluetooth as wireless USB. With that said now picture your computer and its USB ports, U may only have 4 usb ports on your computer but U can always ad USB hubs and connect up to 32 devices to your computer. BT is similar to the basic computer, each BT control center can manage up too 8 devices with BT 2.0 ( or as we want 8 dcc controllers). So all U would need to do is add more control centers ( bargan basement Dell systems). Each computer (BT control center) could control 8 trains ( IE: 4 computers, 8 trains each, 32 trains total) and then be connected to a mini server that could mange all the computers. and since there are 4 digit pins used in BT for siginal acceptance all you would need to do is make sure no one uses the same digit code ( start from 1001 and code each locomotive up to 1032). thats just my simple termonology of how U could operate a nice size layout with BT. BT 1.0 and 1.1 are very limited not worth the effort for dcc. BT 2.0 and 2.1 are much better and have a good transmiter range and can accept new inovations on the BT platform. However they are working on BT 3.0 and it is said to be able to connect up to 50 devices (rumors have it), and a range of around 1-2 city blocks. but proubly won’t happen for the BT groups are more into security for the wireless devices than extention to additional devices.
The reason for the limitations on the number of BT devices running from one central point to another is the # of bits in the address packet. To keep the devices “fast” you need to send small packets of data, so in order to help this along you need to make simple address packets. Now if one system can only use a total of 8 devices then it uses 3 bits for the address packet (also called the Octal number system) With 3 bits you can have a total of 8 unique addresses with 4 bits you can have 16 and with 5 bits you can have 32. So the number of devices could change pretty easy depending on the addressing software. Also not all BT devices are universal. My Nintendo Wii controller is BT and so is the PS3 but I cant play PS3 games with my Wii controller or visa versa. So we could see BT come to our command stations and DCC in the future, I would like to see it any way, and depending on the software that is used we could have a huge advancment in DCC technology. Manufacturers could even (If they wanted to) configure the BT devices to be “NMRA Universal” like decoders are and allow us to use throttles from one manufacturer on another’s system. That would be great for those of us that have one brand of DCC at home and the club you are in uses a different brand. There would be no more borrowing throttles or spending extra $$ on one that is only used from time to time when you are operating at a friend’s house or your club. Hmm…
good points Massey, I just did not want to get to technical for most people start saying ??? when I go into address packets and bits. but it would be great to see all the dcc manufactures use a universal system and not security lock it ,and change the frequency platform and digital mapping from one to the other.
( IE: why PS3 and WII controllers cant work on each others systems but there both BT).
What’s a Bluetooth? Is that those little gizmos, that people have surgically implanted on the sides of their heads. I always thought they looked like robots, wandering around looking for the mothership. [:D]
I gotta draw the line somewhere. I don’t even carry my cellphone with me most of the time, because I just don’t want to be bothered everywhere I go. That’s what answering machines are for. Call you back, when I get around to it. Can you hear me now?
LOL Yea those implants are the most common bluetooth device right now. But who knows maybe some day we will all have these implants on our heads wondering around with aimless purpose looking for that which cannot be seen unless you have your implant… Sheesh this could get ugly
If there are libraries in Java to access Bluetooth devices, this theoretically could be done today, with an extension to the throttle feature of JMRI, at least for a proof of concept test. Use a BT mouse as the ‘throttle’ - roll the wheel for the throttle, and most mice with wheels have at least 3 effective buttons, so that gives you F0 for lights, F1 for bell, and F2 for horn.
I would think that someone should be able to develop a (translating) device so that we could use controller “X” on any system. I would think there would be a market for just such a device for the reasons SMassey mentioned.
Maybe we should suggest this to Tony at Tony’s Train Exchange as he seems to be the one that comes up with a lot of accessory devices.
