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LEGO Boost discussion and support

13

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  • GranddaddyGranddaddy Member Posts: 5
    I saw some discussion regarding battery life with Vernie.  I only get 10 to 15 minutes before getting the battery low message.  Does Anyone have the solution to diminish Vernie's appetite?
  • CyberdragonCyberdragon Member Posts: 549
    First of all, please don't double post, second please use the sticky thread.

    http://bricksetforum.com/discussion/26765/lego-boost-discussion-and-support
  • GranddaddyGranddaddy Member Posts: 5
    Thanks, I had read all that thread and was hoping for some new information.  I’m new on the forum, please forgive the double post.
  • ramon2000ramon2000 Member Posts: 1
    edited December 2017
    We received the LEGO boost as a Christmas present and I have a problem with updating the Move Hub Firmware.

    Every time I switch on the Move Hub, the app asks me to update the firmware. The process seems it is fine and everything works fine until I switch it off. Then, the next time it asks me again to update the firmware, I update, etc.

    I think that once updated, it must not be updated until a new version is released, since it is stored in the Move Hub.

    I have tested it with a new Fire 7 (2017) tablet, that is in the list of supported devices (it takes 2-3 minutes to do the update), as well as with two windows 10 computers (in this case it takes 10-15 min for the update).

    I am using rechargeable batteries, but I have also tested with "normal" ones.

    Does anybody have any clue on what I am doing wrong or if there might be any problem with my Move Hub?

    Thanks
  • jmnienabjmnienab Member Posts: 1
    Just opened our Lego Boost and installed the app on the iPad -- all seems to be working fine. When I checked the list of compatible devices, I saw that the list of iOS devices had expanded to iPhone 6+ (running iOS 10.3 and up). The site had indicated that these were the only tested devices. My son's iPod touch is running the latest version iOS 11.2... my question is, has anyone used an iPod Touch successfully with their Boost?
  • moggersmoggers Member Posts: 1
    Hello, my son got Lego Boost for Christmas and we've been using it for some different things to what's in the box and it been great. I now have a question regarding this. in the coding we can see how to perform an action if the colour recognised is red or green or white etc. The question I would love help on is how do you code 
    if colour is not red then do this action?
    I feel there's a strong chance it can't be done but I'd love it if there is :)
    Thanks

  • stluxstlux Member Posts: 2,450
    Seems the December (?) update to the app has added support for mobiles, so you are no longer restricted to tablets. There's now also a Windows 10 app, so as long as you have a Bluetooth 4.1 device you should be good.
  • bluedragonbluedragon Member Posts: 506
    I can confirm it works with iPhone 6.
  • snowhitiesnowhitie Member Posts: 3,076
    edited January 2018
    Granddaddy said:
    My grandson and I are new at this but are having great fun building together.  Maybe we aren't far enough along yet but I would like for Vernie to dance while music is playing.  So far the music block has to finish before he will do any of the dance moves.  So is there a way to multi process the program blocks?  Thanks
    You can program more than one line of code together. You just start a new row. So you could code one line for Vernie dancing, you can do one for music playing, you can do another one for something else too. You can play each one seperate or you can press in the upper right corner on the main play button and then all the rows together work.

    Does that explanation make sense? I can try and take a picture next week when we are back home.

    Granddaddy said:
    I saw some discussion regarding battery life with Vernie.  I only get 10 to 15 minutes before getting the battery low message.  Does Anyone have the solution to diminish Vernie's appetite?
    It does seem to use quite a lot, we manage to do more than 10 or 15 min, but yes. I've been wondering to start using recharchable ones.

    We enjoy Boost, I wasn't sure about it but my son really wanted it and it's better than I thought. We run it on an old Nexus 7 pad.
  • caprichriscaprichris Member Posts: 0
    While building the Vernie program, I find that the program gets stuck at the 2nd brick/command and fails to go to the next.
    does anybody have a solution to this?
  • americanninjaamericanninja Member Posts: 1
    I decided to join this website so that I could comment on this battery issue with the Lego Boost. It's really bad. My son and I play with the Lego boost for probably 15-20 minutes at a time. And typically during the second time of play, I get a notice of low battery and then within 5-10 minutes it's dead. This is ridiculous, seeing that it runs off of 6 AAA batteries. I get it, there is a motor, but come on, Lego built something that basically lasts for 1.5 plays and then you need to replace batteries. 

    I'm hoping this is just some firmware issue and their is excessive battery drain because of some low talent hardware developer. Anyway, people need to be vocal about the battery issue so that Lego takes note, and hopefully makes some improvement. I've never used rechargeable batteries (at least not since 1988), so I guess I will give them a go again. I see Amazon has them and Amazon also makes a recharging station. Anyone have any feedback on them?

    Thanks
  • CyberdragonCyberdragon Member Posts: 549
    I seriously hope they did not put all those batteries in series. Because if they did, you are only getting the capacity of a single AAA battery! If the batteries are wired for 4.5V it would be two AAAs equivalent and for 3V three AAAs worth of current. I can't seem to find the actual voltage of the Boost, so perhaps someone else knows.

    Either way, you will not get 6 AAAs worth of capacity, at best half!
  • sid3windrsid3windr Member Posts: 1,460
    Pretty sure all of LEGO's electronics are 9V? (except for the IR remotes..)
  • RaelxRaelx Member Posts: 3
    I think this is what you are looking for, http://uploads.brickset.com/docs/legoboostcoding.pdf

    From here https://brickset.com/article/30950/boost-programming-block-decoder

  • graphitegraphite Member Posts: 3,275
    Huw said:
    I've wondered the same...
    Had to laugh that @Raelx got the info from your article @Huw =)
  • SpaceCudetSpaceCudet Member Posts: 1
    Bought this for my son for Christmas, everything was working fine until final part of making the guitar and the hub will no longer connect to the iPad. The light just stays a steady green. Have contacted support but still waiting for them to figure what the issue is. Best guess at the moment is that an interrupted firmware update has bricked it :( 
  • greatballpitgreatballpit Member Posts: 85
    I'm planning on picking up Boost some time in 2018 to try and make some GBC modules out of it.  I've wanted NXT for years but it's been too expensive with no price drop even though it was released so long ago.
  • CyberdragonCyberdragon Member Posts: 549
    greatballpit said:
    I'm planning on picking up Boost some time in 2018 to try and make some GBC modules out of it.  I've wanted NXT for years but it's been too expensive with no price drop even though it was released so long ago.
    If you plan on going to any events with it, you will probably need to bypass the batteries and have a hardwired power source. As has been discussed the battery life sucks.
    greatballpit
  • RaelxRaelx Member Posts: 3
    To be fair it looks like the wrote the article in Oct after seeing this in Aug.
  • RaelxRaelx Member Posts: 3
    So about the battery life thing. With no comparison system i have been happy with the battery life. The first set of batteries lasted about 2 weeks and 3/5 of the way thru the tutorial builds. I looked at the possibility of making a rechargeable battery pack but LiPo packs would not increase the power density over alkaline and would be fairly expensive. You can buy a lot of AAAs for $50.

    If you wanted hard wired that would be trivial to hack into the existing battery pack.
  • graphitegraphite Member Posts: 3,275
    ^ Ah that would be more like @Huw.  Didn't see the original thread was so old.
  • bichuelobichuelo Member Posts: 18
    there is a big discussion on this set here: http://bricksetforum.com/discussion/26765/lego-boost-discussion-and-support/p1


  • askvictoraskvictor Member Posts: 3
    Regarding the Autobuilder (the robot building robot), I've managed to have some success overcoming calibration problems. Firstly, if the batteries are low, it won't work - it doesn't have the power to get to the end of the track. Secondly, the 'self-calibration' that happens when you first open the autobuilder code section seems to be important. I haven't been able to reliably trigger the calibration manually, but immediately after one, it seems to work better. Closing the app and navigating back to that code page sometimes triggers it, and switching the robot off then back on again might do it too. 

    Seperately, is this the only real discussion thread on Boost? I can imagine that an entire category might be useful; if the entirety of discussion occurs in a single thread it gets difficult to find and follow discussions. Also it would be good to have a community store of information; I'm considering starting off the boost section on brickipedia/fandom/wikia.
  • askvictoraskvictor Member Posts: 3
    OK; I've started a page on brickipedia for BOOST: http://lego.wikia.com/wiki/LEGO_Boost
    Being a wiki, it's less about discussion and more about facts, so feel free to put anything relevant up there (e.g. what tablets work, peculiarities with certain BOOST models, meanings of certain coding blockes)
  • vp1245vp1245 Member Posts: 1
    Another issue with LEGO Boost is its insistence that the microphone is active. OK certain tasks require a mic, but *I* do not like open microphones in my house. This is *my* policy and if LEGO doesn't like it, then they get their game back as it is useless without the app (and the app is useless without access to the mic).

    How much simpler if you could disable the mic in the preferences (and OKed a pop up to the effect that loss of audio input may cause loss of functionality)  and got on with the other 95% of the game.

    My guess is that the developers where newbees, without any understanding of what is involved in a game involving children and the special considerations for applications involving minors. Their choice of supporting only the latest IOS (at the time of the release of the game) is also a strong hint of lack of experience.

    Anyway, while it looks good, I would not recommend it for children.

    **vp
     
    catwranglerbichuelo
  • EvilTwinEvilTwin Member Posts: 135
    Not sure if this has come up before.. I'm looking for some reasonably inexpensive programmable robots for an education project I have in mind. I currently have a bunch of Mindstorms NXTs that I use but I'm looking for some additional stuff. 

    The problem is I don't like the "visual" programming style that is used in the Boost app. Are there any old-skool text-based programming languages available yet for the Boost? For Mindstorms there is RobotC (and others) but I don't think a Boost version has made an appearance yet.

    Also, how does the Boost compare to e.g. the SBrick (or SBrick Plus)? (I see that can be programmed in JavaScript)
  • bichuelobichuelo Member Posts: 18
    @EvilTwin check this out:

    Programming Boost with Python:

    LEGO® Boost with Python programming

     

    https://github.com/undera/pylgbst


    I haven't tried it yet, though

    ricecakeEvilTwin
  • EvilTwinEvilTwin Member Posts: 135
    That's very cool. Now I may have to buy at least one of them for experimental purposes...
  • bichuelobichuelo Member Posts: 18
    @EvilTwin

    Here's another one. This is based on Scratch which is visual, however it is more flexible than Lego's own app
    http://www.picaxe.com/lego-boost

  • RoboManRoboMan Member Posts: 6
    edited March 2018
    I just pulled Vernie out the closet to program some routines for a birthday party coming-up.  It's still working great and is a blast to fool around with.  Johnny 5 come to life. :)

    Concerning the batteries, I've been using these:

    Rayovac Recharge PLUS High-Capacity Rechargeable 900 mAh NiMH AAA

    They've been working great for me.  I spent over 4 hours last night programming and testing out various routines with Vernie, all on one set (6 NiMHs installed in Vernie) of the Rayovacs listed above.  I bought three 4 packs last Summer, when I got the boost kit, so 6 AAAs are charging while I'm using 6AAAs in Vernie, in case I want continuous operation.

    Also, the best mod I did was to give Vernie his own voice box, rather than just have the voice come out of a tablet.  I used these components I bought on eBay and they work like a charm.

    TaoTronics Wireless Portable Stereo Bluetooth Transmitter TT-BA01 Paired A2DP

    Anker AK-A31040A1 SoundCore nano Bluetooth Speaker with Big Sound, Gray

    Plug the TaoTronics into the tablet, mount the small Anker speaker on Vernie (I just used some nylon fishing line to hang the speaker on the front of Vernie, in a "customized" space), link the TaoTronics and the Anker speaker.  Vernie's voice is then actually coming from him, rather than a tablet, the way it should be! :)

    Enjoy!


    snowhitie
  • askvictoraskvictor Member Posts: 3
    edited March 2018
    Looking at a teardown video of the Move hub on youtube, it appears that the microcontroller inside it is an ARM STM32F070RB. There is a micropython port for the ARM STM family, could be an interesting way to get Vernie operating completely autonomously. Flashing would obviously be tricky; the OTA firmware update method used by the stock boost would be the best approach, but would need to reverse engineer how that actually works (it seems to be a standard BLE protocol)
    sid3windrbichuelo
  • CNI6CNI6 Member Posts: 2
    First post here. My 6 yr old has just finished building Vernie. We are working on understanding the programing modules. Grabbed the pdf file that I saw earlier in this thread. Very helpful.

    Running Vernie off iPad Air. The mobile Hub needed a firmware update as soon as we started the process. Seems to be working fine (keeping fingers crossed after reading about issues, shared by others, earlier in this thread.

    Will watch out for battery drain (using Energizer AAA for now), after seeing all the different user experiences above in this thread.
    bichuelo
  • SeijiAmasawaSeijiAmasawa Member Posts: 264
    Someone posted earlier in another thread that Boost is $59.99 at Target’s website.
  • CNI6CNI6 Member Posts: 2
    Just checked. Boost at 159.99 at Target's website.

    They do have the Creator 31062 for $29.99
  • SeijiAmasawaSeijiAmasawa Member Posts: 264
    I was able to ‘buy’ it at 59.99 (around 9am?) but who knows if Target will honor it.
  • papa_syerspapa_syers Member Posts: 2
    My six year old keeps having the same recurring problem.  After setting up a series of commands and hitting "play" the sequence performs and stalls on the first block, the forward command, which has a kind of illuminated aura around it, and a drone comes out of the tablet. The sequence stalls at that point and continues to drone and have that circling aura around the first block. 

    Please help! 
  • 77ncaachamps77ncaachamps Member Posts: 2,442
    edited March 2018
    Is the battery area different from that in EV3 Mindstorms?
    They have a rechargeable battery pad.
  • stluxstlux Member Posts: 2,450
    The Boost app has now added support for the upcoming #70652 Stormbringer and #60194 Arctic Scout Truck sets. Android and W10 only currently. Pictures at Promobricks.

    Eager to see that Ninjago dragon in action; might be what finally gets me to buy a Boost set!
  • JohnyWalterJohnyWalter Member Posts: 4
    Any information about infinity war collections ?
  • bichuelobichuelo Member Posts: 18
    77ncaachamps said:
    Is the battery area different from that in EV3 Mindstorms?
    They have a rechargeable battery pad.
    This one uses AAA batteries which are placed in sets of two, non linearly

    Indeed, quite different from the NXT, I don't have an EV3 but I understand that is the case as well
    77ncaachamps
  • HuwHuw Administrator Posts: 7,075
    stlux said:
    The Boost app has now added support for...
    What about the rollercoaster?
    bichuelosid3windr
  • stluxstlux Member Posts: 2,450
    @Huw According to Promobricks the rollercoaster was added to the app the following day.
    Haven't seen a video yet of the combo in action. Supposedly the Boost motion sensor activates the chain lift when the train arrives there, and adds some nervous chatter as the minifigs move up the incline and towards the drop.
  • HuwHuw Administrator Posts: 7,075
    ^ Yes, that's my understanding looking at the instructions on how to fit it. Probably not worth going out my way to test, then...
  • MrShinyAndNewMrShinyAndNew Member Posts: 283
    Boost has Windows 10 support now, has anyone managed to get it working with a USB Bluetooth dongle? It seems like pretty much every BT dongle on the market only supports BT 4.0 but Boost requires 4.1LE. 
    bichuelo
  • bichuelobichuelo Member Posts: 18
    Huw said:
    stlux said:
    The Boost app has now added support for...
    What about the rollercoaster?
    done. it shows up inside the app already
  • datsunrobbiedatsunrobbie Member Posts: 1,813
    edited June 2018
    I spotted Vernie's head in a bag at the local thrift shop Saturday. After a bit of looking I found another bag that had most of the rest of the set. Not sure what bits are missing because Vernie was already partly assembled and I finished putting him together so my grandson and I could try him out. All the electronics are there, so far only missing a few pieces to cover Vernie's torso.

    I was able to use both a Huawei Honor 5X and an Honor Mate SE phone to run the boost app, as well as a recent iPad. Much to my surprise (having read this thread) we are still on the first set of batteries after more than 4 hours of play, using Kirkland Signature AAA alkaline batteries. Maybe the firmware update it pushed on first connection has improved battery life?
  • datsunrobbiedatsunrobbie Member Posts: 1,813
    Added the phones I have tested to the compatible android phones list on the Brickipedia page started by @askvictor

  • snowhitiesnowhitie Member Posts: 3,076
    Little resurection of this thread. My son (9) wants to get a book about Boost.
    Anyone have any experience with these two and any preference?
  • dbrougedbrouge Member Posts: 27
    LEGO has released the BLE protocol for the Boost hub: https://github.com/LEGO/lego-ble-wireless-protocol-docs

    Lyichir
  • WeathermanWeatherman Member Posts: 3
    Hello. I was hoping someone here could help me. We got a Lego Boost for our daughter for Christmas and she recently started digging in to the different designs. She just built the guitar, and once she attached the "strumming" mechanism and the "whammy bar," anytime she uses one of those items, the Move Hub makes a loud whine. We can't get the whammy bar function to work at all, it just makes the Move Hub whine when we move it. The strumming tool works, but it also makes a high-pitched whine when we move it up or down. I am dumbfounded, as I know all the actual sounds are supposed to come from the iPad. These high-pitched whines, however, are coming from the Move Hub most definitely. It makes the guitar model almost unusable because it overpowers the sound of the guitar coming from the iPad.

    Does anyone have any explanation for this? I am torn between returning the whole set and trying to figure it out. I don't want to wait too long and miss my return policy deadline, but my daughter loves the set and I would love for it to work for her. I have actually heard the high-pitched whine in a number of YouTube videos of people using the guitar, so I'm hesitant to think that I just got a bum unit. Lego has been nice enough to offer to change out the Move Hub, but I am worried that one will be the same, and by then I won't be able to return the set. Ugh. Sorry for the long post. I'm just really frustrated by this sound coming from the Move Hub, which I cannot get rid of. Any help would be SOOOO appreciated!

    Thanks!
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