I got my grubby little hands on the demo unit for our store layout and set it up on my big layout to try it out and shorten the learning curve. Setup in MTH network mode was easy, almost stupidly simple and I was running trains on one TIU withing minutes. Most of you may know I am pretty critical of the MTH DCS system and the issues it can have but setting this system up, it just worked and it worked great. The WIU is a simple set up and the app is very intuitive and easy to use. I tried it on both my phone and my ipad mini and if you are wondering, it works best on something the size of a phone. The app does not have screen rotation so you will need to hold your phone/tablet vertically. The big speedo is great for setting your speed and ramping up and down and the main screen only has the keys you will use regularly. Adding engines with the app was quick and painless even with several on the tracks, the app added them in just a few seconds and gave me a list of the ones I had on the layout. Starting up and running was simple and effortless. I was able to goof around and run trains for several hours with absolutely zero problems or errors. I haven't had this much fun with DCS ever. No RF out of range, no "Engine not on track" no remote crashes not one issue. MTH did it right. Comparing this to the $50 Lionel iCab app isn't even comparison. This app makes is far superior in my opinion. Its ease of use is at the top of the list for what makes it so nice. The only issues I had with this app was the sliding toggles that moved left to right. When going to slide the toggles like volumes and what not the screen had a tendency to slide over to the next screen instead of getting the command sent. MTH could easily fix this by eliminating the sliding screens(easy to do since the horizontal sliding screens have a toggle button at the top of the screen for the tree separate screens. The other issue I had sas setting it up on my home network. I had huge issues setting up the WIU on my wifi network. The behavior of my WIU did not follow what thw quick start guide says but I finally got ti figured out but when I shut off power to the TIU it would not reconnect to the network and required a reset. I found this was due to some issue with my routers I tried 2 different routers and both ahd the same issue. Bother were Netgear one is a WDR4300 and the other is an R4500. Both had the same reconnect issue however when I got home and connected to my Apple Airport Extreme it just worked and keeps on working. So keep this in mind if you are having issues with reconnecting on your Netgear router.
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