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I recently purchased one of the newer Lionel Bluetooth equipped Polar Express sets.  It's a very nice set, although I've been having trouble with the Bluetooth.   It runs fine with the Lionchief remote, but the Bluetooth signal seems to be lost easily.  Initially on the club layout it lost the signal if I let it go to the other end of the layout and into a tunnel, which is understandable.  Now under my Christmas tree at home it seems to lose its signal no matter how close I stay to it.  Keep in mind it can't get any further away from me there than the included track in the set allows it to.

Has anybody else had an issue with a loss of Bluetooth signal?  I'm running it with the app on an iPhone SE if that makes a difference.  Losing the signal from two feet away seems a bit extreme to me.

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Jake, I haven't had that issue at home.

Do you have a robust WiFi signal at your home on the 2.4ghz spectrum?   If so, that could cause some interference, but not definitely.

 

If so, try turning off the WiFi for a moment, and see if that makes a difference in running your train via BlueTooth.

 

Edited to add:   MRMOE's suggestion is a good one as well.  if you have another iOS device you download the app to it from the app store and try it.    Also, sometimes simply turning off bluetooth, rebooting your iPhone, then turning bluetooth back on can fix bluetooth connection issues.

Last edited by EscapeRocks
gunrunnerjohn posted:

BlueTooth is not a long distance signal.  I doubt they went with the high-end BT hardware in this unit, and of course there's also the device you're talking to it with.  I lose the BT signal on my new Legacy H10 at about 40 feet using the Samsung Galaxy S8+.  Hard to imagine they used better BT hardware in a set locomotive.

I wasn't surprised it lost the signal on the club layout as I was standing quite a distance away and it went in a tunnel.  It just seemed odd to me that it would lose it within a 2 foot distance while running under my Christmas tree.

I'll try as suggested above guys and see if I get any better results, thanks for your suggestions!

It sounds like you have it figured out, but I’ll add this information for anyone who has similar problems.

I had a terrible connection problem between my iPhone 7 and my fifth-generation iPad earlier this week at my parents’ house. When I tried to use my phone as a hotspot via Bluetooth, the connection attempts repeatedly failed.

So I began trial-and-error troubleshooting. By shutting off WiFi on both devices, I was able to make the connection. They still worked after I turned WiFi back on.

Bluetooth does have a limited range, and I’m guessing GRJ is right about the less-robust equipment built into the LionChief models.

At the club, I have also gone out of range using the remote, though in that case it was because I stepped into the bathroom for a moment with the remote still in my possession.

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