Mr Hobbles

Yes, my apologies, I actually just meant “it’s available to see”, as we were all trying to get a look at the product. :)

The expansion set is already available: https://education.lego.com/en-us/shop/spike-prime/spike-prime-products

This is a known issue with the Powered Up hub and not isolated to Cosmik42's software. It only occurs with "intelligent peripherals" - sensors and tacho motors, but not basic motors and leds. As soon as you plug two in, boom - crash and restart. There are various rumors flying around why it occurs, such as it only having the internal hardware to handle communication with one sensor at a time, who knows. But I've also heard that Lego intends to release a firmware update at some point to stop the crash.

More Powered Up news today! https://shop.lego.com/en-US/category/power-functions All the components are back on sale on the US Shop@Home store! And the descriptions give away some interesting information. 1. The Boost hub is now the "Powered Up Move Hub". The train hub is now the "Powered Up Hub". In fact all the motors and sensors have been renamed to make them more generic. This surely means they're moving to unify them. 2. The description for the Move Hub says you can connect to it from the Powered Up app, which is currently not possible. App update coming soon? 3. The description for the Remote Control says it can pair with either a hub or move hub, which is currently not possible. Firmware update coming soon? 4. The train motor says it can be connected to a Move Hub. As a matter of fact, all the motors and sensors say they can be connected to either hub. I expect app and firmware updates very soon! It seems unification is underway!

Oohh good spot. I went through more pictures and you're right, they all have it. So I have to assume they're all tacho motors, and medium/large as you suggest. Nice. I wonder if they'll work out of the box with the Boost Hub - if they have similar internals to the Boost tacho motor, then they should require minimal/no effort to work with it.

Yeah...more specifically the large one is a tacho motor, with angle rotation and sensing. I think the others are large ones too, just not tacho, but I could be wrong.

An interesting thing to note about this is that you can buy the hub and motor seperately on the shop, but note the names: https://education.lego.com/en-us/shop/spike-prime/spike-prime-products "Lego Technic Large Hub" "Lego Technic Angular Motor" I wonder if the hub in the Technic Liebherr is classed as a smaller hub (since it's only 4 ports)? It also seems like these components might find their way into certain Mindstorms or Technic sets in the future?

Aha I see, thanks for the info! I'm curious to see how it all works - already have my preorder in on the Education site. (July 29th shipping, it's a looong wait)

Interesting, do you have a link where I can read some more about that? I couldn’t find anything on stored program capability.

Agreed - sorry, I think I was unclear. :) I meant the *types* of sensors included is identical to EV3. 2x motors, 1x touch sensor, 1x color sensor (with new RGB LED), 1x distance sensor. But yes the connector is the new LPF2 connector. I also like the new, colorful colors though! I was not a fan of the "gamer" colors in EV3 - red, black, grey. There's a sentence somewhere on the SPIKE site that mentions how the colors were picked for being pleasing and gender-neutral.

I think it's interesting that it includes exactly the same sensors and motors as EV3, and LEGO places it into the same "Secondary Education" category as EV3. They've left WeDo 2.0 in the line up as the "Primary Education" entry. I think this may very well be intended to replace EV3. We'll have to see what the consumer set looks like. CNET though says the processor is an "100MHz M4 320 KB RAM 1M FLASH", which definitely isn't up to par with EV3.

Massive update to the Powered UP ecosystem today: LEGO Education SPIKE Prime! Lots of info here: https://education.lego.com/en-us/meetspikeprime Looks like a new Mindstorms style hub with 6 Powered UP ports and a charging port. Also a programmable 5x5 LED matrix on the front. New EV3 style motors, and a new EV3 style vision sensor (I'm guessing IR again). Two other sensors, can't tell what they are yet. $329.99, preorder today. I'm guessing this will be the basis for a new consumer LEGO Mindstorms set somewhere down the line (Maybe even as soon as summer release? Though I think January is more likely). EDIT: On closer inspection, the motors and sensors seem to match those in the EV3 set. One IR distance sensor, one light sensor (but with an LED that can be lit up on the front), a touch sensor, and two motors.

I think it's because over the years there has been complaints of certain parts being difficult to see in instruction booklets. Dark grey vs black, light grey vs grey, etc, and it gets more tricky when you have to spot the new piece in the new page of the instructions, and the piece and the build you're placing it on are the same color. So they tend to use contrasting colors for pieces that are near each other. Cue random blue 2x2's in the middle of a fire truck, or a yellow train plate under the wagon.

I think that's a little disingenuous. I think if anything TLG has proven time and time again that they do care about backwards compatibility. PF to 9v. 1950 to 2019's brick. Even between Friends figures and minifigs. There's all logic to the madness. I have heard that the decision to go with new connectors for PF2 was largely a safety decision. With PF1, and its range of connection possibilities, it was possible to create a dangerous loopback and damage components, create shorts, etc. With PF2 and its new (non reverse-able) connector, it's not possible. I also hear that's why TLG is reluctant to introduce a PF1/9v to PF2 conversion cable. If they do, then it allows those loopbacks again. It's important to remember that Lego, ultimately, is a child's toy. :) Even electronic components need to be safely usable by kids 5-10 years old. Compatibility wise, it's good that Lego is making all the different ranges compatible in their own ways. WeDo 2.0, Boost, Powered UP, Technic CONTROL+. The software isn't there yet, but hopefully it will be, and until then, we make our own. :D (Incidentally I also hear that's part of the reason why 9v trains went away. Yes the rails were expensive, but also the exposed metal conducting electricity gave young kids shocks.)

[0x11, 0x09] is for activating a motor for a specific amount of time - this doesn't work for the WeDo 2.0 motor on the Move Hub as it uses the hardware inside the Tacho motor for the timing. You need to check the type of motor, then revert to our old friend [0x11, 0x51] to activate the WeDo 2.0 motor (Note: This is also true for the Train motor). In your case I think the full command you're looking for is 070081PP1151VV. :)

As @Lok24 says, it’s dependent on your hardware. With my MacBook Pro late 2013 model I’ve had 14 Lego BLE devices connected with noble/node-poweredup.

You probably know this already, but when the hub/remote is turned off, you can hold down the button until it flashes purple to make it forget its pairing. So they will never connect to each other on disconnect again. :)

Here's a small anecdote for you: I had some free time today, and the wife is out of town, so I decided to set up a large track layout in our living room, play around with some trains, and annoy the dog. I brought out my Emerald Night, Maersk train, Metroliner, and Horizon Express, all of which have been converted to Powered UP (The Horizon Express has two hubs and two motors, and the Emerald Night is powering an XL PF motor through a conversion cable I made. The Metroliners headlights are also using a home made conversion cable.). I'm running some code on my laptop and connecting all the trains to it. I try turning the first hub on the Horizon Express on. It immediately goes solid white. "Huh, that's weird", I think to myself. I hold down the button and turn it off. I press the button again - once again, solid white. "wtf?", I think to myself. I turn it off. My laptop isn't discovering the hubs. I start Googling search terms to find out the problem, on a Lego troubleshooting site or something. Nothing. Eventually I think to myself maybe this hub's firmware is corrupted somehow, so I try a different hub - the one on the Maersk. I press the button, and again, it immediately goes to solid white. Even my Powered UP remotes are exhibiting the same behaviour. At this point I'm very confused, and wondering whether the last time I connected the hubs to the official iOS app a firmware update was applied that changed the behaviour of the hub. About 30 minutes of repeatedly turning various hubs on and off and cursing and then I suddenly had a thought - "Is there something else in the house that's searching for Bluetooth devices and connecting to the hubs immediately upon discovering them?". A few more minutes of cursing then it dawns on me, I have a Raspberry Pi acting like a Bluetooth hub to connect to some smart home devices we have. I turn it off, try again on the hubs - and, nice blinking lights! It all works as normal. It turns out that some of my (at least 3+ year old) code I have running on the Raspberry Pi has a bug. If one of the light switches in the house runs out of battery and disconnects, the Pi starts searching again, except it doesn't make sure its the correct type of device. It was connecting to all my hubs thinking they were light switches. :) Oh well, about 45 minutes lost due to stupidity! It did get me thinking though, this could be a problem at exhibitions for train layout displays. At worst, a malicious actor could bring with them a device that connects to hubs as soon as they turn on and prevent layout operators from connecting to them. At best, layout operators could cause confusion amongst themselves by not properly filtering for UUID's or hub names and stealing each others trains from across the hall.

I think you might be focussing a little too much on the "must be on straight tracks" concept. :) The train still works off tracks for kids push around playability, and it can still go on switches/curved tracks/ovals/etc for people who want to put it on a normal track system. The straight tracks requirement is only there for the app to recognise the train and provide the AR functionality. I don't think they've sacrificed anything. If anything, the new ramp is a nice new track part for us train people who might want to re-rail our trains quickly and easilly! (I have no interest in the train itself, it's a bit, bland, in my opinion. Some of the other sets in the theme are really nice though. Schoolbus, graveyard, boat, diner, etc)

I don’t think it matters on a per brick basis, but it needs the overall shape to be consistent as it’s looking for markers. With the train for example, if the wagons are at an odd angle to the locomotive, it’s doubtful it would be able to recognize it. It’s looking for a straight train on tracks.

I believe the inclusion of the track and ramp piece is not for play, but due to the limitations of the AR tech. I think it will have trouble recognizing the train unless the cars are lined up perfectly, as other videos have shown that other sets in the theme need to be set up exactly as required. The track enables the train to be perfectly lined up, and the ramp enables kids to do it quickly.

Have you managed to get the ramp working? I've been trying to grok the official documentation around the accel/decel profiles this morning, but finding it a bit hard to follow in places. My hubs throw errors regardless of what bytes I throw at them. :) I've got the queue working, but the hub has a limited buffer, so without the ramp command its difficult to use for ramping up through individual steps.

Wow that's a good find, I just checked out the UK store too, and indeed, both 10874 and 10875 are gone. If indeed the problem is the color sensor, I wonder why a firmware update couldn't fix it? Interesting!

Interesting. Which set are you talking about? Afaik, all the Duplo train sets are still for sale, including the Education coding express.

I must admit I haven't tried these commands yet, as the LWP document was released after I implemented my own motor ramp in the node-poweredup library, which, as you say, works by issuing a rapid succession of motor commands. I can't speak for @Cosmik42, but as I think his software was also released before the document came out, and he's said in the past that portions of it were inspired by node-poweredup, I'm guessing he uses the same method. If he does in fact use the new method, I might steal that in return as I haven't implemented it yet! :)