kbalage

I expect this Btw I still can't wrap my head around that flagship that has half the piece count of 42099. It could be a nice wheeled alternative of 42065/42095 to offer a base set of Powered Up parts, but how that will become a flagship is still a mystery...

Since it has problems with ground clearance it looses traction ;)

No problems, 42097 and 42098 had a different date. 42099 will come later.

Here's my take on the set:

@dimaks13 are you sure the flagship car is slightly bigger than 42095 and not 42096? 42095 is even shorter than the Corvette, that's really not flagship size.

9398's RRP was 200$ in 2012, that's around 225$ today, IMHO the added functionality of Powered Up is worth 25$. Let's imagine Lego would release a Bluetooth RC unit in the size of SBrick to replace the IR receiver, everything else stays the same. I'm 100% sure we'd see the following complaints: - TLG is only running behind the competition, total lack of innovation! - SBrick supports sensors, why don't you support them? - SBrick has programmable sequences, where are they? - This unit is more expensive than the IR receiver! - Why can't you put the receiver together with the battery box? In case if it is integrated, why can't we have the separate receiver? - BT phone control is rubbish! (But SBrick and BuWizz are still better!)

Had a little fun with the set while I was waiting for Season 3 :)

Complaints are coming and will come mostly from people with unrealistic expectations. If the Control+ system works well as designed I'm sure it will be a hit among the kids, they loved 9398 as well and it was much slower and could not even climb like this one. The MOCs you and @syclone mentioned might crawl better but they won't sell as a kit for sure, the connector based body comes apart easily in the hands of kids. They might be great MOCs but as @AVCampos said they won't go through the product tests at TLG. There are so many restrictions and different needs that a LEGO product needs to match, it will never be the perfect one for everyone. One remark about the price - BuWizz is between 100-150 EUR depending on their actual sale and the taxes, 55 EUR for 2 L motors and a Servo. This means only the electronic parts are 150-200 EUR and you did not buy a single brick yet. If you go with PF only then it'll be much cheaper, you can get all the electronics for ~100 EUR, but then it'll have all the limitations of IR control. With SBrick you can get it for ~140 EUR so this might be the most optimal solution with all the bells and whistles of BT control, but again you need to add all the parts. My point is - yes we can build a better crawler for a significantly lower price because we have the parts, the motors and we don't build it for kids. Once you start looking at it with no parts at home and as a product that needs to find the balance between many needs it becomes more reasonable.

I'm really curious what great rock-climbing MOC can you build "for a fraction of the cost", especially if you use BuWizz since that costs 2/3rd of this set and you still have to buy the PF motors if that's a fair comparison. As always a set from LEGO will not be a specialised crawling monster that die-hard off-roaders can use out of the box, this is still a toy. Considering the Control+ hub and the motors this is a great starter pack if someone wants to have a full set of Powered Up components to play with, and it has a bunch of other useful parts as well (wheel hubs, new joints, 3x3 biscuits etc). Additionally, if someone is after a better performance then it can be still modded freely.

That's exactly why we need to wait for the official app to make a judgement on the motor performance. Controlling them with low-level commands and having the app to take care of it might have a different result.

TLG's embargo for the set is still more than a month away so that was not an official offer for sure :)

That's the Creator Expert version

This photo gives you a better idea about the shape than the rendering:

The Spike Prime hub can store/run apps and the Boost hub will have something similar as the Star Wars Droid set needs it. The devs are planning to put a virtual machine on the smaller hubs as well (PU AAA hub / Control+ hub) so they can run apps on they own and not only by receiving commands from the app/remote.

It was not mentioned in any of the interviews I saw so far so it might be there but then it's very unadvertised, or its simply not ready and it might change until August. Apparently the app is set-focused just like the Powered Up app with specific controls for the given set. If I remember correctly Jetro from Hispabrick said that there are no further controls beyond the set-specific ones but I'll have that confirmed.

I know and I'm sure it can/will be added later, still (if it is correct) it is sad to see that the essence of LEGO which is free build for me is missing from the app at day one. I'm very positive about the whole Powered Up system and Control+ as well but if a simple IR receiver / remote can do more out of the box then I think that software was not properly designed.

Had some time now to watch the videos and I love the new hub and the joints, can't wait to build them into some older models. Really like the removable body as well. The app looks very polished, I agree with @Jim I'd also like to see a fully capable solution from LEGO. My only concern here is the apparent lack of customization. Sure the programming/recording is nice, but what if I want to do a dead simple upgrade and use the 4th port of the hub to add a light? Can't seem to find any way to operate it from the app, and if I'm right that is a huge miss from LEGO.

I finally had the possibility to shoot a video with this fantastic MOC:

Don't think so, considering the huge variety of external controllers and the potential compatibility/connection issues. Luckily for this purpose we already have BrickController 2

That's an interesting concept, I guess it would work with slower vehicles. Same setup for the steering or that'd remain bang-bang control? Anyway I can raise this with the dev guys during our next workgroup session, I'm interested in their opinion.

Since it is only a question of the software/firmware I'm sure the support will come, although probably not for the launch of the product. The devs need to find an easy and convenient way to assign the controls of the remote to the different hub outputs and also to assign multiple outputs to single control elements. The train remote however will only offer bang-bang control, I don't think a train-style speed stepping method would make any sense for a car.

Nothing prevents you to swap the motors with their PF counterparts (maybe the Servo placement can be tricky due to the different for factor, we'll see) and run it with the fantastic futureproof infrared connection. I seriously don't understand this whole concern about the app control not being futureproof. You can run Commodore 64 programs on a smartphone nowadays, how difficult will it be in 10 years time to port an open platform to a recent device? Personally I don't like the touch interface but that's got nothing to do with the future. I prefer physical controls, and if Lego will not give us a proper remote with proportional joysticks and buttons I will happily use Brickcontroller 2 and a gamepad that works flawlessly with Powered Up and also a bunch of other platforms.

No need to steal the photos, you can borrow them I also think that's the L motor what we see on your photo.

Just to add some points to the presentation slides - although it might not be clear for the first sight that's not a definitive promise for the adapter. They are investigating what would be the best way to do this, so it's still like a strong "maybe it will come". The biggest hesitation is about the actual functionality of the adapter cable versus the cost and also potential false expectations. Should it be a simple power line to control motors? Should it support the PF Servo? What if people would expect to power a PF IR adapter? What if people try to connect the old PF sensors and expect them to work? There are a lot of questions like this.

Personally I don't mind the flat surfaces and hard edges, this way it is easier to see where the motor will fit. At the beginning I had some challenges to "see" if e.g. the XL motor will fit somewhere or not due to the shape. What bothers me more is the color variation - the Boost and the "city" components are white, the Control+ components are grey. They will look weird when used together. Another interesting bit from the interview was about the controller and the whole design approach - apparently the development of PU parts is project based, meaning instead of designing a complete family of components and releasing them gradually they follow a project based approach and they create the component if a new project (set) needs it. This means we are stuck with the current controller because no one from the Technic team asked yet for a controller with joysticks and proportional control