kbalage

Sounds like an interesting approach, would be great to know if it is technically possible. Based on my experience range depends heavily on the smart device, the difference can be easily the half/double! Btw any BT connection range disappears in seconds if you try to run things at 25+ km/h :D

I did not give this example to find excuses for the BuWizz team, just wanted to point out that tech companies have regular issues with advertised product features versus reality. Citing EU laws is nice but we could spend half of our lives at court if every similar scenario was taken seriously. Well it wouldn't hurt to actually ask them how you could return your purchase. If the shipping terms are not acceptable for you then there's still an option to negotiate with them about a compensation.

Just to make it clear, I participated in a competition organized by the team, I was not there to promote specific features of their products. I understand your disappointment, but frankly almost every tech company and product could be questioned based on this. Just an example, I wanted to use my GoPro 10 as webcam on Windows 10, which is an advertised feature. Well except it doesn't work, their forums is full of complaints about it, and the company (that is on a slightly different scale than the BuWizz team) did not resolve it for a year now. Customer service acts like they didn't know anything about the issue, and they cannot provide any solution either. Do I ask everyone to boycott GoPro? No, I see no point of doing it. Does it affect all customers? For sure not, but for me personally it is still annoying. I bought the product because this was one of the features I wanted to use, maybe next time I'll do a better research. Regarding BuWizz 3.0 and 2 BuWizz motors, I honestly don't remember whether it was explicitly advertised as a feature that works. But even if it was advertised, did you really expect it to be working under all circumstances? I could overload the BuWizz 2.0 unit with some solid torturing using 2 XL motors only. What if someone gears up the output of the BuWizz motor or slaps it in a 5kg model and still expects it to run without shutting down? I would say that there are scenarios when you can power 2 BuWizz motors with a single 3.0 unit, and there are scenarios when it will shut down even with a single BuWizz motor, it heavily depends on your usage. As a MOC designer you can test your model and see whether it works or not, and you can set the expectations accordingly. I don't think that there'll be any magic firmware fixes that might make the 2 motors work with a single 3.0 unit under sudden heavy load. What the BuWizz team could and should do is to provide more clarity when it works with some examples, builds and videos to manage expectations. Removing the simple speed selector switch was not a good idea for BW3 in the app, since it makes the output adjustments more difficult with the power curves. Btw I think the "running out of range" issue is a way more critical one and that one should get priority. It existed in BuWizz 2.0, I had some serious challenges with it when I was doing the speed record. Apparently it exists in 3.0 as well, and that is more concerning than any other problem. All in all, I'm not sure a boycott or anything similar is the most reasonable thing to do. If you are disappointed with the product, then return it to the company. Maybe someone else is fine with it, as it fits their needs. What we would need from the BuWizz team is a very clear and up to date communication about their products to avoid such scenarios, e.g. removing the feature on the BW3 product page that says it works with the all PU sensors, I don't think it actually does. It should be 100% clear what are the features that they want to implement in the future, and what are the features that are working today. Regarding the issues that are actually fixable, as @shroomzofdoom said we should have a clear and public timeline. I was planning to do a video with the BuWizz motors and BW3 for some time now but I will definitely extend the test to see what are the exact circumstances and models where it does and doesn't work. Once that's done I'll reach out to the team and ask for their feedback and a public clarification, that's what I can do from my side.

This might be the case in your region, maybe LEGO UK had a bigger stock. I didn't see many of them on the shelves around here, actually if I check the price history it significantly increased for some time at the beginning of the year, which means it was actually out of stock in most shops. On the other hand I see way more Monster Jam sets being discounted around here. I guess stock levels might be different per region, and the demand might be different as well.

I think despite its popularity, the Defender is not considered to be a success in LEGO's records. It generated many customer complaints, and although the company tried to apply some fixes (the U-joint realignment in the manual), de cracking issue could not be resolved without a fundamental redesign that never happened for obvious reasons. Since the Defender all non-RC licensed "off-roader" releases were highly simplified, and apparently the target audience does not really care about it. The Jeep is simple mostly due to its scale (although the ATV have way more features at a similar scale), and the Ford Raptor has really no excuses of being RWD only. As I see TLG is targeting the licensed Technic vehicles to the broadest audience possible, which means they only have a very minimal amount of functions. Anything more complex for Technic enthusiasts is either unlicensed or remote controlled. The only exception I've seen recently is the Airbus Helicopter, although that one being licensed seems to be an afterthought, the main reason might be the need of having "something licensed that flies" after the cancellation of the Osprey.

It's interesting to bring sets from the Racers theme as the "ascendants" of the current Technic cars, because that's exactly what they are supposed to be :) I have to disagree a bit here. I think Racers was primarily a play theme, except for a few larger-scale Creator Expert-style branded cars. Speed Champions used to be a play theme as well, but after the change to 8 stud wide it became the miniature and more affordable version of the Creator Expert cars, focusing on maximum realism at this scale and funky building techniques. But you are right, it should be left as is, the approach and the cars are brilliant. Regarding Technic's heavy shift towards cars, especially branded cars with minimal technical features, I think this is where the Racers theme or something similar would require a comeback. The reason is simple, usually about a dozen of Technic sets are released each year, and with the current proportions there's very little space left for non-car machines with interesting functions. There's definitely a need on the market for these cars otherwise they wouldn't focus on them this much, but if e.g. half of the 2022 lineup would have been released as Racers, then Technic fans could have received other, more technical sets as well. This of course would require additional resources on the designers' side, but I'm sure people would like it. Edit - an additional thought about the set sizes, there are Technic sets for sure where the size is justified. The problem is with sets where the exact same functionality could have been squeezed in a much smaller form factor, or there's tons of space left for additional functions at this scale. The CAT bulldozer is a great example for the first one, and for the latter there are almost all ~1:10 scale branded cars.

I see, well that is a missing feature indeed. I don't want to defend the BuWizz team here, but apparently precision control of the PU motors is even a challenge for the folks at LEGO themselves, at least the lack of meaningful updates in the past 2 years for the Powered Up app shows me that, after all this time we still don't have access to the hardware encoder data. Another alternative would be the SBrick Pro app that is supposed to be able to do it, but that's also in development for years now.

@HectorMB I'm wondering what are the functions that you are missing, what did you expect to do with your units that don't work at all? I also wish the BuWizz team had much bigger resources and could push the developments out faster, but I think every basic function I expected to work is working. For me the most important feature of BuWizz 2 & 3 is to be able to provide high(er) voltage to my LEGO builds and it works. Of course I would love to have e.g. controller support as I hate touchscreen control, but as I've seen during BuWizz camp kids are just fine with it so I accept that my need was not the first on the priority list.

As @blondasek mentioned LEGO updated the digital instructions for the Ferrari recently, now most of the major errors are fixed. There are still some issues left, so apart from following the online instructions I suggest to check this list, it contains the fixed and remaining errors. If I missed something please let me know and I'll update the list :)

I don't think that's the case, there are skilled guys in the team. If you are in this business then you know how project roadmaps and deadlines work, especially within smaller teams. But I think you are right regarding the published software dev roadmap and how customers' expectations could be managed in a better way. Communication is key, more transparency with the changes would be appreciated. Based on the published blog post we can see what the team wanted to achieve in Q1, but apparently it takes more time. Which itself is not an issue, but the changes in the roadmap should be regularly communicated. As @gyenesvi mentioned we've already seen the gearbox-stepper functionality working at the BuWizz Camp, but it'd be great to know when to expect it in the public release. @aFrInaTi0n you could start a public poll to but I'm not sure how many BuWizz users are represented here on EB, how strongly the outcome could back up your message. I simply suggest to drop an e-mail to the BuWizz team and explain what your (and the others) expectations are.

Well as I understand they add extra parts because the machines couldn't weight precisely 1 small piece, but can correctly detect if there are 2 of them as that's already above the margin of error. For me this means the exact number of standard and extra pieces should always be the same. Of course mistakes might happen, but it shouldn't be as frequent as you mentioned (50% of the sets). The standard error rate is 1 in every 10.000 sets if I remember correctly, it was also mentioned in a New Elementary interview.

This shows the current lack of cross-theme compatibility that should have been the main feat of the switch to a common hardware platform. As far as I know you can't even use the small Spike Essential hub with the Spike Prime app. We have now tons of plug-compatible hardware that are spread across closed silos labeled Mindstorms, Spike Prime, Spike Essential, Control+, Powered Up... random motors and sensors work with random apps, but I don't see any intention to bring them under a common and really versatile umbrella. Oh wait, there is one, it's called Pybricks :)

That shouldn't be the case actually, the number of extra pieces is also precisely defined, just like the contents of the set.

Exactly my thoughts. They see what sells in the shops, and now they also see what sells on the secondary market (Bricklink). Apparently the equation is very-very simple, license + car = profit. These sets use Technic parts only because you can build bigger models with way less parts compared to a System-only approach. I am missing the basic Control+ set of the year from this list though. 2020 had the Rally car, 2021 the Buggy, 2022 the Transformation Vehicle. According to some sources the Buggy will retire by the end of the year, leaving us with a single sub-$250 RC set in the lineup.

Or something like the 42126 F150 Raptor, that's also 1:13-ish with a somewhat lower piece count than the usual 1:10 cars. If I think about it 42077 was closer to 1:10 with only 1005 pieces so it's not impossible... There are enough different panel fairings nowadays to make the body with a lower piece count than Ferrari 488, and we know that the chassis won't use many pieces either

Probably the best set of the wave ;)

I would suggest to test the motor with another power source and the battery box with another motor to see what happens.

Yeah well, they surely make sense on City monster trucks but not on Technic ones ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Could have been an opportunity to give them justice and update the tires :)

The assumption is that the Material Handler is already listed with the price increase included, but the Tow Truck will be increased later (August/September). But I think even after the price increase the Two Truck will remain a much better deal :)

@howitzer I was comparing the US price as I mentioned in the video, and if you check it on lego.com the Tow Truck and the Material Handler are both listed for $150.

Exactly. No need to reinvent the wheel, just make the LEGO version of the Xbox or Ps4 controller :) But that'd also require the ability to be configured and used in standalone mode without the need of a smart device acting as a bridge, but that would need the VM mode to be functional on the hubs, so we get back again to the software/firmware development part of the story...

And it wasn't funded, so it won't become a product anytime soon. But it shows the lack of general interest, some people keep repeating that they want a proprietary rechargeable battery for Powered Up, but of course everyone wants it to be as cheap as 6 rechargeable AAs which is nonsense. Apparently the real interest is minimal, that might be the main reason why it is not worth for TLG to produce and sell it, especially as a standalone product. Btw the whole Control+ / Powered Up ecosystem is not bad by default, it already has so much potential with all the currently available hardware components if we include everything from Spike Prime / Spike Essential / Mindstorms etc. The no 1. problem is still the software and the total lack of interest to provide any resources for a proper development.

We need a Creator Expert Chevy Impala lowrider like right now :)

I have these recorded already IRL, thank you for the offer :)