Speed Stick — JMRI Dongle & Software
The JMRI dongle is a small USB receiver that plugs into the computer running your JMRI layout. It listens for the Bluetooth (BLE) broadcasts the Speed Stick sends every time it measures a train, and hands those readings straight into JMRI — no cables to the stick, no manual data entry.
Key feature: wireless, real-time capture of scale-speed measurements directly into JMRI. The Speed Stick measures a passing locomotive, broadcasts the result over BLE, and the dongle delivers it to the JMRI Receiver software automatically.
Application: speed matching and calibration. With readings flowing into JMRI, you can profile and speed-match locomotives, verify scale-speed against throttle/DCC settings, and log consistent measurements across an operating session — all hands-free, while the stick stays trackside.
Two ways to connect. The dongle hears your Speed Stick over Bluetooth and then passes that data to JMRI one of two ways. Over USB, you simply plug the dongle into your computer with a USB-C cable — it appears as a serial connection, and the JMRI software reads the readings directly off that port. Over Wi-Fi, the same dongle joins your layout’s wireless network (a quick phone-based setup picks the network and enters its password) and streams the readings to JMRI across the network, so it can sit anywhere on any USB power source with no cable to your computer. The data itself is identical either way — only the path differs, so you can pick whichever suits your layout.
The Panel. The Panel is the live on-screen display that JMRI builds for your Speed Stick. It shows the reading in a large, easy-to-read format — scale speed (or lap time in loop mode), the units, the active mode, the model scale, and the selected stick’s battery level — and refreshes automatically as new measurements arrive. A connection chip shows at a glance whether you’re on USB or Wi-Fi. If you’re running more than one Speed Stick, on-screen arrows let you flip between them, and you can rename each stick, recolor its readout, and resize the window to suit your bench — preferences that are remembered per stick.
