@Paul Kallus posted:A bit off topic, but what I am curious about, if anyone knows, do any of the other scales control, using DCC or other systems require the use of Smart devices? I couldn't find any substantiating evidence that they do; and if that is accurate, then it appears both Lionel and MTH are alone in "pushing" consumers in that direction, ostensibly due to the high cost of making handheld controllers, e.g., DCS and Cab II.
As rtr12 stated Digitrax, MRC and NCE all have the good old hand held remotes.
There are others, but the good thing about it is that (like Santiago said) DCC is open source so any of the systems can be used to control any installed DCC decoder. It doesn't matter if it is SoundTraxx, TCS, Lenz, Digitrax, ESU, etc. That helps prevent what it going on right now with Lionel and MTH with discontinued command controllers going for blood money, real or unreal shortages, and waiting for new systems (mostly WiFi) to finally appear (subject to ticket scalping).
Moreover, for less than $100 you can make your own DCC control system using DCC++ or DCC++EX and readily available arduino based modules and lots of instruction all over the internet. They use the open source Decoder Pro and JMRI. Readily available WiFi modules make them wireless and you can use either the Engine Driver (Android) or WiThrottle (Apple) app to run the locos.
John
