Hello, so i don't often do 'unboxing videos'
so you know that when i do, it's because
it's an extremely cool product that i've got my hands on
and i've got my hands on something here
that you can see, clearly says "train tracker"
london underground large Tfl Two
a nice man called Richard sent this to me
he actually sent me two
the large one
and a small one, but we're gonna unbox the large one here
and show you exactly what this is, this is the first time
i've dug into the large box
woah
and so, what we have here
i kind of know what to expect
it's a PCB ... a printed circuit board
in the electronics world, if you're designing a bit of kit
your circuitry will exist
on what's know as a PCB, a printer circuit board
and quite simply
what he and his company have done have created
the tube map
on a printed circuit board
with LED lights
little tiny lights on there, and the idea is
you power it up
you'll log it into their server, via your WiFi
and it then gets real time information from TfL
so TfL have an API which tells you about the positions of the train on the network
you can use it on their website
but the idea is that you log this into the API instead
and then, it lights up, and you have it
you could hang it on your wall, you could put it on your desk
you could put it on your bedside time so that it's there to greet you when you wake up first thing in the morning
you can see
at a glance, a real time view
of how the network is holding up! so ...
i should point out i have already done this with the smaller one a test, this ...
the difference between the two, there's a large one and a small one
if you look at their website their website Train Tracker is on screen now
the smaller one is white LED's only
the larger one as we'll see in a second as i've not plugged this in yet
is colours, and the colours of the line
let's get you up and running, you will need ...
power, to power up your board
your setup code which is on the back of the board
now it says, power your .... plug your power supply
into the walk, and then the cable into the board
and go to out website to set it up
now when i tired the smaller one
that just works off of USB, so
standard Mini USB can plug it into your computer
or a wall adaptor, or a sockets, or you could even power it
of like, like a bettery power charge type thing
you can power it off of that
but the large one here, this appears
power's on
and we'll plug it in
so the side here
a light has come on
it's like, it's ... it's doing a boot up sequence
it does look as if there is a mini USB port as well
so maybe you can power the large board
by USB there
and on the back there is setup code
i'm going to go and type that setup code into my computer
on their website
full instructions are included and it's a straightforward setup process
where you go to the traintracker website
to type in your boards code
give it a name
and you connect to the board using local WiFi, and then
give it the name and password of your WiFi network
so it can connect to the internet and grab the live data feed
from TfL
and then, you restart the board
so, plugging it back in
just to reset it
it now knows, the WiFi details
i can see it booting up, it's got a sequence here
and some lights are starting to appear
*chuckles* ah, there we go
and so the lights DO match
the colour of the line, so you can see you've got green here
for District Line trains
blue here obviously
for Victoria, and Piccadilly line trains, red there
has just appeared out on the central line
i can see some yellow circle line trains
purple up here!
for the metropolian line, the lights are corresponding
for the central line now, filling up, filling up with trains
there's a pink!
for the Hammersmith & City, i've just realised
you can't have black lights
can you have black lights? you can't have a black light can you
not in LED form
and so for the Northern Line, they've done white
coloured lights, look at the Turquoise for the DLR
and that is lighting up, and showing you
the network ...
and it currently is, so remember this
is connecting through your WiFi
connects to the TfL Data feed, and it gets
their real time positioning on where trains are
on the network, and it sends it through. so it's PCB board
with LED's showing you in real time
where, the trains are
note that that does mean if you ever set this up permamently
and you have it on in the middle of the night
so between 1am and 5am
on weeksdays when there's no nightube
the board will probably just be blank
and then around 5am you'd slowly watch it come to life
that is incredible
what there is also, let me just put that there
for one second
and i'm gonna try it, is that you get a wooden stand
with it as well
and i believe that this goes together like
... so
and so what you have
is then a stand
which you can then - that is amazing
that is so good! put the board on there
and that just slots in
sits there, that does look fantastic
that looks, that looks ...
quite incredible, just slowly rotate it around
and there you have the full sized board
remember, the full sized board is in colour
this is the larger sized version
the small one is about half the size
a quarter? it's smaller
it's just white LED's, i'm loving the colour version
'cause obviously it is the correct colours of the lines and it's showing you
the positions, so in the morning
if you're rushing for the tube
getting on the train
you can just glance at the board and see at a glance
basically, if there's no lights on your bit of the tube
then you know that there might be something wrong
you might not want to get it check the status of the tube you might just want to get it
because it looks just frikkin cool!
it's an amazing, visual, LED
colour LED representation of
the London Undergroun, like we say
it's using TfL's API, it's getting the data
from their website
so the website, the company is traintrackr
the website is on screen now
the gentleman - Richard that runs it he's like an electric engineer
by trade that's what he does
he's combined all his passions into making this
he likes transport too
the website it beautiful it's nicely designed
it just works, you can go in
setup, connect to your network
you can change the brightness
they have other products too
there's a version that shows you the rainmap
of the UK, so you can see
a visual representation of LEDs
where it's raining in Britain
also for americans there's a Boston subway network
i gather that some of the team, that worked on the product
are based, on the other side of the pond
and i very much suspect that they will be adding
new products in future
a New York one would look amazing wouldn't it?
but there you go, that is a thing of beauty
of absolutey beauty, it's gonna take pride of place
oh my shelf
in my office, in my room
i can monitor, in colour
colour LED's on a PCB board
the status of the tube network
all day, that is Traintrackr
large version
and small version
go check it out, i love it, i genuinely
genuinely, absolutely love it