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Late to the party and worked on cranking up my NW wifi camera caboose today.   Used the included disc to get it connected to my laptop and decided to go for my cell phone or Kindle too.  I examined posts from the past and apparently the android version of the Lionel wifi camera app used to be available on the google play store.  After trying numerous searches, it does not appear to be there anymore.  Did I miss that it has been replaced or is there a new version / name?  Thanks for any guidance.

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Some slightly bad news for you,

The android app appears to have been abandoned, some quick searches pull up a post from someone that called Lionel and got told that it was being worked on... back in Sep of last year.

Could have been pulled from the play store for a variety of reasons unfortunately. If you are looking to get the functionality of the camera app on mobile you'll need to grab an iOS device for it, or use a computer.

Funny enough the instruction manual seems to indicate it's a basic IP Wi-Fi Cam device that uses it's own wi-fi network (at least from the PC instructions it shows). Odds are it would be viewable on any app that can connect to an IP cam, but that goes beyond the spec of this thread.

Lionel's fixation with Apple IOS is one more reason I suspect the BASE3/CAB3 might be a loser for me.  I'm not converting to Apple products just to run my trains, and I suspect I'm not along!  There's more Android phones than Apple phones, so what's the deal about not supporting over half of the marketplace?

I'm definitely curious if they only have Swift/Obj-C developers working for them, or if it gets outsourced to another 3rd party development team that only does that. Normally cross-compatibility is (relatively) straight forward with languages like React Native (which I use for work).

Lionel's fixation with Apple IOS is one more reason I suspect the BASE3/CAB3 might be a loser for me.  I'm not converting to Apple products just to run my trains, and I suspect I'm not along!  There's more Android phones than Apple phones, so what's the deal about not supporting over half of the marketplace?

John the Base3 according to the catalog supports android and yes I agree they up until now have only supported half the market which inline with what seems to be a half assed approach they usually take LCS wifi cam the list goes on.

Screen Shot 2022-03-13 at 4.55.58 PM

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John the Base3 according to the catalog supports android and yes I agree they up until now have only supported half the market which inline with what seems to be a half assed approach they usually take LCS wifi cam the list goes on.

Ad copy is cheap, but they also claimed to support Android and Apple with the camera cars as well.

I've asked @Dave Olson about this a few times on the forum and never received a response. I gave up on Lionel doing anything to support these WiFi camera cars anymore for the Android platform and the lack of recent camera offerings in the catalog indicates that they may have lost interest too. Given the grave lack of support that Lionel has for the Android community makes it worry some how this will reflect on the base3 app.

Lionel's fixation with Apple IOS is one more reason I suspect the BASE3/CAB3 might be a loser for me.  I'm not converting to Apple products just to run my trains, and I suspect I'm not along!  There's more Android phones than Apple phones, so what's the deal about not supporting over half of the marketplace?

Amen to that. I am also one with no interest in apple stuff.

@H1000 posted:

I've asked @Dave Olson about this a few times on the forum and never received a response. I gave up on Lionel doing anything to support these WiFi camera cars anymore for the Android platform and the lack of recent camera offerings in the catalog indicates that they may have lost interest too. Given the grave lack of support that Lionel has for the Android community makes it worry some how this will reflect on the base3 app.

That is aggravating isn't it?  I guess I have not missed much waiting a year to get this caboose going.  Let's hope somehow @Dave Olson   or one of the Lionel team updates us. 

Lionel's fixation with Apple IOS is one more reason I suspect the BASE3/CAB3 might be a loser for me.  I'm not converting to Apple products just to run my trains, and I suspect I'm not along!  There's more Android phones than Apple phones, so what's the deal about not supporting over half of the marketplace?

https://www.lionel.com/article...ownload-Instructions

Thanks Dave, we have the instructions.  the issue is the Lionel WiFi camera app is not available on the google play store site as far as several of us can tell.  Can you please let us know where to find it?  thanks.

@SirCaptain posted:

Some slightly bad news for you,

The android app appears to have been abandoned, some quick searches pull up a post from someone that called Lionel and got told that it was being worked on... back in Sep of last year.

Could have been pulled from the play store for a variety of reasons unfortunately. If you are looking to get the functionality of the camera app on mobile you'll need to grab an iOS device for it, or use a computer.

Funny enough the instruction manual seems to indicate it's a basic IP Wi-Fi Cam device that uses it's own wi-fi network (at least from the PC instructions it shows). Odds are it would be viewable on any app that can connect to an IP cam, but that goes beyond the spec of this thread.

@hokie71 posted:

Thanks Dave, we have the instructions.  the issue is the Lionel WiFi camera app is not available on the google play store site as far as several of us can tell.  Can you please let us know where to find it?  thanks.

The link to the file is in the instructions Dave posted..... scroll to the bottom or just click this:     https://www.lionel.com/android...nChiefWifiCamera.apk

Last edited by Brian DeFazio

While it is nice to finally see some effort in getting the Camera app available again. This is not the best approach for installing this (or any) app on an android device. Pretty much any cybersecurity expert with 4 cents of knowledge will tell you this is not a good way to deploy an app to your customers, in fact it is a very common way hackers deploy malicious apps to unsuspecting users.

The instructions provided are incomplete. While the download worked there were a bunch of security hoops I had to jump through. Most importantly is installing an APK from an unsecured location, which at first failed on the Samsung TAB A I tried this on.  I had to allow the web browser permission to install the APK file but the Android system then denied permission to install an app from an unsecured location. Only until I placed the device in "Developer Mode" could I finally install the app.

These instructions are a "Duct Tape & Bailing Wire" solution at best and further weaken my confidence in Lionel's ability to properly develop, deploy & support apps on the android / Google Play platform. I'm not sure why it took Lionel so long to come up with a "solution" as this instruction page was published on their website today and this problem with the missing app has existed for a good six months now.

Hello All,

A few days ago, like others on this thread, I attempted to the download the camera Wi-Fi app from the Google Play store to my Android tablet.  Despite Dave Olson's post above, there is still no individual camera Wi-Fi app to download on the Google Play store.  See cell phone screenshot below, taken on 07/02/2022.  Furthermore, the dismissive "rolling eyes" gif demonstrates a very poor attitude toward customers.

Additionally, I found that I must have downloaded the android Lionel camera Wi-Fi app two years or so ago on the android cell phone that I use for the MTH app.  Unfortunately, I can't open the camera app because the password I have is wrong.  I see no way that I could have changed the password, or if I did, how I can recover it.  In any event, the default 8888 password doesn't work.

Hello H1000,

Thank you for the work around information.  Although not a tech level computer user, I am computer literate.  Consequently, I'll give your workaround a try.  I hope that my McAfee catches any malicious code.

It would be easier to mount a cell phone on a GP9, etc., platform behind the locomotive's railing and broadcast live on Instagram to a small audience or just the operator.  The video quality of my Samsung Galaxy S10+ cell phone is superior to the Lionel camera anyway.  Actually, I mounted my cell phone as described previously.  The video quality is great.  Obviously, I couldn't watch video in real time.

Last edited by RockvilleBear

@RockvilleBear

The Lionel WiFi cameras didn't impress me as with many other WiFi camera systems. I was hopeful but they fell short for what I wanted to do.

I initially built a camera car using drone FPV camera equipment that produced a good Standard Definition video but that system was analog and was accompanied with static interference if the signal wasn't perfect. It was built on a flat car and had the nifty feature of rotating the camera to match the curves. It did however look a little odd in front of the engine.

My most recent camera system is High Definition, eliminates the static of the previous analog system and is really easy to use. You get clear 1080p output without having to know the ins & outs of WiFi. Just plug it in, turn it on, and go.
https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/...5#154307984004363555

Below is a video of the camera in action recorded from a TV.

(Be sure to change the player settings to 1080P for best visual results)

Last edited by H1000

The Lionel WiFi camera app was nothing special. It was a rebranded version offered by a now defunct developer FTY. Around the release of the Caboose Camera, there were 100's of these app developers around and now most (if not all) have evaporated. 6 Years ago I was able to test about half a dozen apps that all worked with the Lionel hardware and with other cheap wifi cameras from Amazon. Lionel does offer the app direct from their website but their instructions are incomplete. Installing the apk from their site on your phone will also include putting your phone in developer mode and allowing installation of apps from "unknown sources". Here is their link: http://www.lionel.com/articles...wnload-Instructions/

I suspect that we may have seen the last of Lionel's attempts at train cameras until more reliable and cheaper technology comes along.

Last edited by H1000

Thank you for the update!  Do you happen to know any of the apps that did work?  I have tried what I can find on the play store and none seem to find it even when entering the ip and username/pw. 

I did try to download from Lionel, had my phone in developer, and allowed the apk source but had the same not supported in this version message if you had any other suggestions?

Thanks again.

I went back to try and find some of those old apps and had no success.  Most of those developers for the hardware and software were fly-by-night entities that were here one day and gone the next.  Your results with getting the Android app to work don't surprise me. A lot of these apps were pretty sketchy to begin with.

I'll keep looking for another compatible app but so far I haven't had any luck.

@Dd289 posted:

Thank you.  Ive tried but even automatic searching or entering manually just not working.  I do have an older Android Tablet and an Ipad so looks like thats gonna be the way to go.

Do you still have the CD that came with your camera car, can send the contents in a ZIP file to me? I sent my caboose cam back to the dealer not long after it arrived due to a blurry image.  I'm wondering if there is a way to utilize the software in it and build a new Android app.

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