Tcm0

It's also not just about the components that lego buys externally. The gears inside of the motors have to have limited play, development costs, microcontrollers and their programs etc.

But I'm sure that there would be at least some kind of market for the new plug. New generations are coming. I really wonder about the actual market shares. Most of the "organized afols" seem to hate PUP but on the other side there must be some people buying C+ because otherwise lego would have discontinued it already. Or pump out less products. Why not use both systems with all of their advantages? The stackabilty of PF and the sensors, speed control, more precise steering motors etc of PUP? You get even more remote channels if you use both systems in parallel (if you use a remote). But is PF really a simple plug and play solution or is it only because people are used to PF? What about different remotes, battery boxes (some with speed control and some without), different receivers that can power different amounts of motors, the behaviour of the switches and extension wires etc? I bought 2 cada pro power system sets just recently. It's nice that they use their own shapes but it still has many issues. The servo has just 3 proper positions and the lights are way darker. The extension wire is missing the 9V adapter option. I haven't tested the other motors enough so far to give an objective opinion about them. What do you mean by the limitations? For me only the early power functions plug had a problem so far. They don't have a knobble that was added later. But the lego servo is one of the very few if not the only one that has more than 3 positions. Even that can't be copied properly by the chinese. We don't have the chinese motors long enough so we don't know if they are good in the long run. I think the 2 rechargeable battery boxed I heard of that smoked were by mould king and cada. The plug that melted was bluebrixx. Sure. But there is guaranteed support for lego products. I'm not sure how long you'd get replacements on aliexpress etc. But yeah. Lego isn't perfect either. Isn't the discussion of chinese and pf vs powered up also about the price in the end? ;)

Seems like you didn't do your research. That's not the "new" powered up plug. And none of them use the powered up plug. None of them have a rotation sensor. And some of them might not have proper protection which can result in melting plugs. Also, no documentation/specification on RPM etc. I know that it's not a new technology but no chinese motor contains rotation sensors (I'm not sure about KAZI EV5). Why if it's so easy and cheap? And still no word on precision of the sensors on aliexpress.

I know that there are like 3 sellers on aliexpress selling powered up cables. But none of them have a "brandname" like cada or mould king and none of them make motors or something similar, just cables. No set that I know uses them. Yeah, I think that I'm informed about most of the stuff. Yes, there is the KAZI EV5. That's one manufacturer. And an EV3 clone. There is a forum about them but that's pretty much dead. There are only like 6 videos about them on youtube and half of them are russian or smth. Yes, there are a few MINT kits but they acutally do what you wrote. They throw the cheapest sensors they can find into one set and offer no documentation. (one example: 6923 by BanBao). Is there anything that I'm missing?

But people only watch the video if the title includes lego. I mean why does he review mostly lego if he doesn't like it ;) Why do the chinese companies not make powered up compatible motors then? How can lego protect the plug if it is that old? But anyways. I don't see how it is an argument against what I've said. Even if it's that old: where is the problem? Why are there no chinese companies making rotation sensors if they don't cost anything (or robotics sets in general)? They clone the design of boost but they don't clone the functionality. It shouldn't be a problem if china has everything.

I think that one big aspect of the price of electronic parts is security and tests. I've heard of chinese plugs melting and rechargeable batteries smoking. There is basically no official documentation (rpm etc) for chinese components. LEGO releases declarations and technical specifications for some/most of their hardware. Also, the motors have pretty good rotation sensors. You can't compare them directly with normal DC motors.

It uses BTC (Bluetooth Classic) for connections to computers/smartphones. Remote Python commands are beeing used for the "streaming mode". However the Hubs also have BLE. That is beeing used for Hub2Hub communication (included in the latest RI software update) and some python libraries to connect other PUP hubs to the RI/SPIKE hub.

Can you try another USB port? maybe switch between USB3/USB2. The update process is a bit tricky from time to time but it always worked out for me.

I think that sbrick supports powered up devices but it costs 10€. I'm also not sure about the features/programmability. There is a current app and a beta for a new app.

I really dislike solutions that use button combinations. Yes, it's often the only possibility but I forget them really fast and then I have to look them up all the time (yeah, you can also stick a paper to the controller with the combinations etc). Also, there would have to be some kind of feedback which mode/combination got activated via LEDs or something. Also, you need configuration for everything. You have to configure if you use a normal car (one motor for steering and one for speed) or if you use tank controls (one motor for the left side and one for the right side). What about models that use 2 motors per side? I don't think that there is an alternative to an app for the configuration of the remote. There are simply too many possibilites (and maybe even hubs in the future which we don't know yet). An app would also be required to get updates to support new hardware (new motors etc). And what about other models? GBCs, trains etc? Would a normal remote be good for them as well?

That would depend on how the remote can be configured. Powered Up App and probably powered up vm or another way.

Often physical buttons are beeing used for unprecise control and then motion controls are used for the last bit of precision. It's not one or the other but a combination of both. For normal RC controllers for remote controlled vehicles, the joysticks often are for one direction (top/down OR left/right), not both at the same time. And a configuration would make everything more complicated. I agree that I wouldn't want a pistol grip controller. I don't understand why they are successful.

Normally, you'd use the "pressure sensitive buttons" (also called triggers) for acceleration/reverse. It's the default for most racing games. Personally I think that sticking to default video game controls makes sense because that's what many kids are used to. None of the games use the other joystick for acceleration/reverse. That's mainly used for camera controls, nothing you need for a remote controlled vehicle. On the other hand, cranes sometimes use both joysticks in videogames. But speed could also be controlled with a virtual gear shift similar to the top gear car control+ profile. That might actually make more sense because holding a joystick/trigger in a position inbetween is inconvenient for a longer period of time, at least for me. Actually, most common gamepads including the xbox one controller only have 2 pressure sensitive buttons on the front/top, both triggers (RT/LT). The bumpers are digital only (RB/LB). The nintendo switch controllers don't even have analog triggers. They only have digital triggers and bumpers. I'm not sure if it would be possible to create 2 relieable analog triggers per side. Companies get really creative when it comes to the design of the analog triggers. What about motion controls? Many modern controllers have them and some gamers prefer to use them for precision. But a complicated controller might also make problems with copyrights/patents.

I think that the big question is what another remote should be used for and if the market is big enough. Which inputs are required/necessary? I agree with TLG that the PUP remote is enough for almost everything. Just an official way to connect the remote directly to the hubs is missing. The remote can be used to control more or less all of the control+ vehicles available today. Yes, it has limitations because the buttons are digital only but there can be workarounds for that. Two ideas for analog-like steering: 1. move the motor slowly into the direction as long as the button is beeing pressed and move slowly to the center if the button is beeing released 2. move the motor slowly into the direction as long as the button is beeing pressed but only return to center if red button is pressed Similar things can be done for speed. Stuff like simulated gears with the red buttons. So how would another remote improve on that, how specific would it be (the power functions train remote was the only official analog remote but the layout was really bad for vehicles) and would it be worth it? I think that the powered up vm would be a part of the solution but then they don't really get their stuff together. Maybe an individual app that simplifies the use of pybricks would be a good solution (connect to the hub, maybe autodetect model, upload firmware together with right python code embedded).

Yep. I use https://github.com/ndeadly/MissionControl/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3A"BLE+controller" as a list. Lego would probably have to write support/ button mapping for each of them (if they wanted to support all of them)... not going to happen. It would have many advantages, yes. But it would have other limitations. Gamepads had a long path of evolution and they are pretty perfect when it comes to inputs (analog and digital) and outputs. A toy company probably wouldn't come close to that perfection and a "good" controller by lego would be very expensive especially if it has some kind of configurability.

Small correction: it would only work with the xbox series controllers and other ble controllers like the steam gamepad, not with the xbox one controller. That one uses BTC. The earlier XBox One controllers don't even have any bluetooth (connection to xbox is done with a proprietary protocol). LEGO didn't want to mess with different gamepad input styles (XINPUT vs DINPUT etc) so they rely on the android/windows/whatever operating system to handle the gamepads. It's by far the simplest thing to do but it has it's own limits. On the other hand it would probably be hard to tell the customer that he can't use the PS4 controller he has because of technical reasons but the xbox series controllers work.

I think that the best solution for that would be support of pybricks for BLE controlles (like the xbox series gamepad). No toy company will be able to make a gamepad with a good ergonomic feeling and all of the inputs/outputs (analog and digital) for a comparable price. For anyone who wants to try the direct connection between pybricks and the powered up remote: I wrote programms for almost all of the official sets: https://github.com/Tcm0/PybricksRemoteLayouts

To quote the cars movies: "I am speed" :D Greetings from Hamburg. You get what you pay for. The BB train motors have serveral issues (one of them beeing that often the holes for the axles aren't perfectly round). Also, the LEGO PF rechargeable battery lasts more than double the time of the BB one. And it has a timeout after 16mins which might be bad for a bigger layout. And the controller of BB fells like crap because it only detects every 4th turn. A really good software for controlling serveral trains is https://lgauge.com/article.php?article=trains/gallery/articles/bap for windows. It supports more than 10 PUP hubs (or sbricks if you want to go that route) at once.

That's not so easy :D I tried to fit a SPIKE Prime hub into a city passenger train with all of the fancy stuff (motor, lights, sensor and sound) and it worked but the middle car had to be made a bit bigger to fit the hub and there is like negative space left.

PUP remote works just fine as long as you stick to one train motor per train (or one motor per hub). You have the better bluetooth connection (but it has a timeout so the train stops if the signal is lost) and 10 speed steps per direction instead of 7. It gets more complicated if you want to use other motors than the train motors because only the train motor has speed control in the default behaviour. You have to use the app or a selfmade pybricks program if you want to use 2 motors with 1 hub or other motor types. Also, you can't sync motors by plugging them in the same port because you can't stack the cables. That brings us to another disadvantage: you can only use 2 motors OR 1 motor and 1 light OR 1 motor and 1 sensor with one hub because you can't stack the cables and the city hub has just 2 plugs. On the other side you have sensors so automation is much easier than before. The prices for PUP on bricklink are usually cheaper. Also, the city passenger train set gets down to 70-80 euros from time to time.

Here is my opinion. It might be very harsh but that's because I'm trying to help you. The instruction wouldn't interest me anyways because I'm not into bikes. I also never paid for instructions on rebrickable so far and I'm not sure if that will change because I think that it should be seen more as a hobby - not as a way to earn money. That's why I publish my instructions for free. First of all, the build seems very simple. You can probably copy the build from the images and I don't think that the build itself is worth 5€. Even if it can't be copied from the image, I think that I could build something similar without too much work in a day max (yeah you've got some crazy angles but are they worth 5€?). There are other instructions on the page with much more value for the price in my opinion. That aspect gets even worse because many people might find it "ugly". People tend to dislike obvious electronics and the hub in the middle doesn't look very good. I can imagine that there is no other way to mount it if the bike should still work, but it looks weird. And now to the last point: you use many special/expensive parts that not many people have and the model relies on them. It might be better to make a build that uses Powered Up hardware because that's easier to get.

I think that it depends on how long they've been available. LEGO usually takes about a year until the parts are available seperatly. Mindstorms sensors are missing, too.

I'm sure that support for it will be added at a later date. The pup app still lacks support for spike and ri sensors. One thing I noticed about the motor: the input voltage according to the datasheet is up to 6V which is pretty low compared to the system in general and other motors.

I guess that it has something to do with the new graphical style but that's just a wild guess.

Tested a cada servo from the pro power system set with a sbrick and it only has the maximum positions. It has more positions with the rechargeable lego battery but they don't make much sense (no steps in one direction, reversed in the other direction).