Bluetooth Protocol of HM7000

[Mathias-1259976]

Moving from DCC to Bluetooth seems like a very interesting step. Does Hornby plan to document the Bluetooth protocol, so that it can be supported by model control systems for PC, like Rocrail, or iTrain, and the like?

[96RAF]

Hornby state that the protocol will be proprietary at launch, but that is not to say there could not be licensed off-shoot commercial opportunities associated with the HM7K system later.

Likewise they say the free sound profile library could be expanded to cover other make locos and it may be possible to provide the profiles for loading onto other make decoders but that relies upon the way the Hornby sound files are assembled being compliant with those decoders. Future investigation would need to be carried out.

[P-Henny]

Why would any company in their right mind want to give away for free their intellectual rights to a product / technology they have developed. I would like to think that Hornby have had the presence of mind to register a 'patent' to prevent others from copying their designs and use of Bluetooth to support them. Now if at some time in the future, Hornby can see a profitable revenue stream by licensing their HM7000 Bluetooth technology to others, well that would be a commercial decision for Hornby to make.

So no, I doubt very much that Hornby will document their Bluetooth protocol for others for free, at least not in the near future.

Now whether this will be Hornby shooting themselves in the foot is another matter. Take Sony for example. They developed BetaMax which technically outperformed VHS. Sony however prevented anybody else from using it, whilst JVC licensed VHS for other manufacturers to use. Look what happened to BetaMax.

[ColinB]

P-Henry generally a company does that to make sure its protocol gets universally accepted. Remember Beta Max verses VHS, Sony locked up that protocol with licenses, that eventually it died, even though from all reports it was a better system. The guy that developed the container system used universally on lorries, trains and ships gave away the designs for free, they made their money on being first with the product. So if Hornby wants everyone to use it, it is in their interests to make the protocol freely available or it will go the way of Zero 1.

[Fishmanoz]

As alluded to, a significant problem with patenting technology in any field with a high rate of innovation is that it costs time and money to do so. Then you also have to publish the details which just gives others ideas about how to achieve the same result by a different method.

Often far better to be first into the market and developing the next new big thing while others try to catch up.

[Old Kent Biker]

There are already other systems that employ Bluetooth with DCC (Sountraxx Blunami for one example) but they do use their own protocols, as BT is not included in the NMRA DCC standards. I would expect HM7000 to remain proprietory for some time to come.

[96RAF]

I already tried the Blunami app and it doesn’t pick up HM7000 decoders on scan so I am pretty sure the HM7K app will not pick up a Blunami decoder either. Reminds me of the NATO standard which wasn’t quite the same in each participating country ...

[P-Henny]

I fully accept the expressed view that 'patents' can potentually help the competition. But I stand by the view that why would Hornby want to make it easy for competitors by publishing full technical details for free at, or shortly after, product launch.

Historically Hornby have been very poor at publishing technical documentation, given the number of posts on this forum asking for loco & controller circuit diagrams and such like. It's not as if that type of basic loco wiring info has significant 'Intellectual Rights' implications. So why would Hornby's historical policy of not publishing anything useful be any different with HM7000 products (rhetorical question).

[Ray-345818]

"I already tried the Blunami app and it doesn’t pick up HM7000 decoders on scan so I am pretty sure the HM7K app will not pick up a Blunami decoder either. Reminds me of the NATO standard which wasn’t quite the same in each participating country ..."

This isn't really a standards issue. When you make a bluetooth app, unless the app is a generic bluetooth sniffer, it is undesirable for the app to detect every bluetooth device within a 100m radius (otherwise you'd end up with a huge list of speakers and smartphones on your interface screen). So the developer generally adds a filter that filters out unrecognized devices, and only displays specific devices. So it's normal for the Blunami app not to see Hornby boards, and vice versa. If the companies proactively chose to make their control apps interoperable, they could expand the filters in their apps to include each other's decoders (which requires a little coordination).

The next question would be, did the companies use the same command protocol. Blunami uses the DCC command structure. If Hornby uses DCC packets in their wireless protocol, then it would not be a huge leap to make the products interoperable.

In regards to patents, from my understanding there isn't a lot that is "patentable" when it comes to using bluetooth or wi-fi to control a train. Other companies have already patented the control of robots, race cars and planes (vehicles) using bluetooth and wi-fi. Since a train is a vehicle, and patents previously exist for control of a train, there really isn't much to patent for wireless control of a model train (unless you want to stipulate something very specific and novel in your patent). The best path is to make a really good product that customers want to buy.

[96RAF]

At present the HM7K pre-release app does show all Bluetooth devices - scary how many are within ear-shot of your house. There is a filter to hide these other devices and the production release app will have this filter applied and locked the same as the HM6K app has. It simply makes it easier to pick out your devices from the plethora of devices lurking on your street.

[Brew Man]

Don't, Rob, I'm already having sleepless nights no_mouth