Hardware Support: Connecting through a Bluetooth LocoBridge Adapter

LocoBridge Adapter picture The LocoBridge allows you to connect remotely through Bluetooth to the adapter, which then connects to a LocoNet to control your layout.

For more information on the LocoBridge itself, please see its page.

Setup

since 4.1

On Intel Mac and Windows systems, all necessary software comes with the JMRI download.

Note that this connection is not directly supported on Apple Silicon Macs, e.g. the M1, M2, M3 etc. To use a LocoBridge on one of those Macs, please install an Intel-architecture version of Java so that Rosetta 2 can do the translation for you.

On Linux and other systems, you need to have libbluetooth installed. Depending on which Linux distribution you are using, you might have to use commands like
sudo apt-get install libbluetooth
or
sudo apt-get install libbluetooth-dev

For more information, please see this page, which describes the requirements to use the Blue Cove library that JMRI uses to access Bluetooth.

Configuration

To set up a JMRI application to use the LocoBridge:

  1. Start JMRI
  2. Open the Preferences window from the Edit menu and configure the Connection as:
    • Select System manufacturer as: Digitrax
    • Select the System connection as: BT LocoBridge
    • Select your LocoBridge as: the Bluetooth adapter
    • Select your Command Station type
  3. Click "Save" at the bottom of the Preferences window, quit JMRI and restart.