Does anyone know anything about the Roco Z21 DCC system. It looks like it runs from a smart phone app. I am new into DCC and wondered if this would be a good product to start with since it seems very user friendly. Also, it looks like you can take a photo of your layout and then just touch the turnouts to switch them. Anyway, if you have some insight that would be great. Thank you.
IIRC, the Roco Z21 was just anounced in the past year, and can have a camera interface to a tablet or smart phone. From what I have read, it can be sort of expensive and I am not aware of any specific JMRI interfaces(but I suspect it is an XpressNet type of communications). If you are living out of the US(Europe), I suspect the support will be real good.
Jim
The Roco z21 is certainly a “space-age” DCC command station, with fantastic features, putting you really in the driver´s seat on your smartphone or tablet. At about $ 450 not really cheap, though.
Here you can find a little more info on it.
Hi everyone. Thank you for the replies. it is interesting that this post got so few responses. Is that becuase people are not using smartphones? i thought the idea of not having buy handheld throttles and just using your smartphone was really great. About the price, i thought $450 was pretty standard for a DCC system. is that not correct? again, i am totally new to DCC for forgiven if i am totally off base. Thank you.
What’s a smart phone, other than a device that raises your cell phone bill by an additional $50 per month?
The reason there are so few replies must depend on the fact that ROCO has almost no market in the US… The Z21 IS a very competent system, and the price is not so very high considering what it is… I will buy a system later this year!
Hello there,
Just checked, and JMRI and other computer programs offer another way to control your layout via z21.
If you like European trains, a cost-effective possibility is to get some starter kit with z21 (the white one - the black Z21 is too high-priced and needed in very special cases, AFAIK)
N. F.
Roco offers two different command stations to be operated via smartphone or tablet PC. The “big one” is the Z21, the smaller, but a lot cheaper version is the z21 (with a small “z”) at about 1/3 rd of the price of the big one. It does not sport all the functions, nit does not have the following:
- LocoNet
- Can Bus
- Separate programming track
- Variable track voltage
- Automatic ZIMO decoder upgrade
If you can do without these features, the small z21 is a bargain!