Scalextric releases a power module to connect your slot car set to your smartphone

Article

App-Connected Slot Cars Give You Mario Kart-Like Power-Ups and Damage | Gizmodo

From the horse’s mouth

Scalextric

Press Release

Product Page

New Scalextric RCS system

Digital RCS Pro Power Base

Digital RCS Air Power Base

My Comments

The smartphone is about to be married with the slot-car race set by providing a way to help you improve how you race with these sets. The functionality allows for simulation of various motor-racing conditions like fuel-supply. tyre-wear and vehicle damage, yellow-card conditions and the like. It also allows for one to engage in a variety of different motor-race competitions like Grand Prix races, “qualifying” races, drag races and endurance races.

This is achieved through the use of an iOS/Android smartphone or tablet that links to the power-base via Bluetooth 4.0 LE a.k.a. Bluetooth Smart technology. This is facilitated with an app that provides the advanced control abilities. They also use a wireless link to the handheld controllers which are still used by the competitors to control their vehicle’s speed on the track.

This unit is able to work with any standard 1:32-scale slot car track by allowing a user to replace a power base used in the existing layout with this power base. Here, the user just has to swap in a “full-straight” part of the track for this device. The Digital RCS Pro system, which offers more control, uses a special chip to be installed in the actual cars themselves, with most of the recent cars having “plug-and-play” installation.

What this has been highlighting is that today’s smartphones are being able to work with some of the “old-school” hobbies by offering extra functionality and capabilities.

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