Lionel Cab3 4+

Works good in general but there are a number of issues.
1) Does not work well to control the TMCC crane. (This is now fixed!)
2) Some of the icons are unclear and I see no definitive guide to what they are supposed to do, even with the manual online from Lionel website. (Getting better now)
4) The train brake does not work correctly. It pulses the engine to a stop, not smoothly. Also, the speed-up feature accelerates far to quickly to be useful. It doesn’t seem to match the momentum setting of the engine. (Still not great, but a little better)
5) The interface design, while functional, has the look and feel of a cheep Chinese product controller app. It does not reflect the sophistication and realism of the lionel catalog products.
6) Lash up works but with issues: Sequence control doesn’t work right - momentum is broken and some other features drop out until reset. For example the bell and whistle stop responding.
7) An iPad version of the app would be very helpful and allow the display of additional controls, displays, or screens for which there is no room on a phone app. 8) Need to add the RECORD feature from the Legacy system. So the train can drive itself. This would be a great addition to the functions. 9) Need to allow setting of the Restricted, Slow, Medium, Limited, Normal, Highball speeds! All the pre-programmed speeds are sometimes too fast for how I run my trains. This would be a really easy thing to do. Just double tap one of the speed keys and a menu should pop up allowing you to pick its speed setting.

(Note: this is an updated review from the previous one that I had made) After a few weeks of tinkering with the app. I managed to figure most of the features that are on the app. However I managed to find most of the Base3’s functions through a source outside of the initial Base3 instruction manual on Lionel’s app. It was very tedious to try to figure it out on my own. Most of the features on the app work for the most part albeit with a few bugs here and there. If there was one thing I would improve with the Base3, it would be the instructions on how to set it up and how to use the functions it has. Along with fixing a few bugs that are present in the app I think that the Base3 would be better if it had those two things resolved with it.

On the Lionel website it states simple taps or swipes will bring up different menus or options. Swiping down to get to wifi settings on both my iphone and ipad is beyond cumbersome. I probably swiped 50 times last night before the app recognized the swipe and brought me to the page. The option to tap and take a picture of your locomotive is the same way. Glad to product is out but looking forward to the improvements