1
Plug it in.
Connect the included USB-C cable to a 5 V / 2 A wall adapter. The clock boots in about three seconds — you'll see a brief splash, then a black-and-white QR code fills the screen.
What's in the box.
Quick check before you start.
- 1× the Train Clock LED display
- 1× USB-C cable (1 m)
- 1× USB-C wall adapter (5 V / 2 A)
- 1× quick-start card
2.4 GHz WiFi in your home. Most consumer routers expose 2.4 and 5 GHz under separate names; the clock joins the 2.4 one.
A phone with a working camera. iPhone or Android, both work.
USB-C wall outlet near where you want the clock. The included adapter is sized for it.
2
Scan with your phone.
Open the camera app and point it at the QR. iPhone or Android, both will surface a "Join Network" prompt — tap it. Your phone joins the clock's open network (named TrainClock; no password needed).
On most phones the setup form pops up automatically. If it doesn't, open 192.168.4.1 in your browser.
This is the same QR your clock shows. Scan it from here if the matrix display is hard to capture (LED glare, weak phone camera, etc.) — the result is identical.
Only scan once your clock is plugged in and showing its own QR — otherwise your phone will join a network that isn't there.
3
Pick your home WiFi.
The form lists nearby networks sorted by signal. Tap yours, type the password, then tap Test & Save WiFi. The clock attempts the connection on the spot — a wrong password fails in a few seconds with an inline error, so you can retype without a reboot.
4
Pick your trains.
The trains section of the form has three tabs — Subway, Bus, and LIRR. Mix them freely: up to ten rows total, and a subway line, a bus stop, and an LIRR branch can share the screen.
Subway. Type your station's name (court, 23 st…) and matches appear as you type, one row per line that stops there. Each row has two direction buttons with the destination borough spelled out — tap the way you ride, and it's added.
Bus. Type a route like M15, tap Find stops, pick your direction by its headsign, then tap your stop in the list. The stop list is fetched through the clock's own connection, so this works once step 3 is done. No WiFi yet? Expand enter the stop code from the bus-stop sign instead and type the 6-digit stop code — it's printed on every bus-stop sign — along with the route.
LIRR. Type a station name, then tap a branch's to NYC or to East button. Stations served by several branches — Jamaica, Penn Station, Grand Central — also offer an All branches row that watches everything through the station. Once running, LIRR departures show the posted track (T19) so you know where to stand.
Tap Save & Restart. Wait twenty seconds. Trains appear.
What you'll see when it's working.
Quick legend so you know what's normal versus what's a problem.
E
F
Route bullets. Each subway line gets its official MTA color (A/C/E blue, B/D/F/M orange, 4/5/6 green, etc.). Bus routes and LIRR branches draw as small pills instead — buses in MTA blue, each LIRR branch in its official branch color.
Now
2m
7m
Time colors. Red Now = train arriving any second (and blinks). Yellow = 1-3 minutes. Green = 4 minutes or more.
Page bar at the top. When you've configured more than three trains, the clock pages through them. The blue segment shows which page you're on.
Freshness pixel, top-right. Faint green when data is fresh (under 10s old), yellow as it ages, red if the connection has dropped. A glance tells you whether the times can be trusted.
Changing your trains later.
Want to swap which lines are on display, add a bus stop, or try an LIRR branch? Moved to a new home with different WiFi? Unplug the clock and plug it back in. The QR comes back for a few seconds, and the clock keeps the setup form available for an hour after every boot. Same scan, same form, change anything.
If the saved WiFi can't be reached at all (router renamed, password changed, you took the clock to a friend's place), the QR stays up indefinitely until you set it up again. No button-holding required.
Troubleshooting.
The handful of things that go wrong, and what to do.
The QR doesn't open the setup page automatically.
Some browsers are slow to detect the captive portal. Open Safari, Chrome, or any browser and try to load any website — the redirect should fire. If it still doesn't, type 192.168.4.1 into the address bar and press go.
I don't see my home WiFi in the dropdown.
The clock scans 2.4 GHz networks only. Most consumer routers expose 2.4 and 5 GHz under separate names — pick the 2.4 GHz one (often suffixed with _2G or -2.4). If it's still missing, tap Rescan networks, or scroll to the bottom of the list and choose type manually.
"Couldn't connect" after I typed the password.
The clock tried the credentials and the network rejected them. Most common cause: a typo (passwords are case-sensitive), or you picked the 5 GHz copy of your network. Re-pick from the dropdown and re-type. The form remembers what you had selected.
Bus search says the display needs WiFi.
The bus stop lists are fetched through the clock's own connection, so the route search only works after the WiFi step has passed its test. Finish step 3 and try again — or skip the search entirely: expand enter the stop code from the bus-stop sign and type the 6-digit code printed on the sign at your stop, along with the route. That path works fully offline.
Trains all show "99m", or the screen is stuck on "Connecting…".
The clock joined WiFi but the first arrivals fetch hasn't landed yet. Give it about thirty seconds. If it persists past a minute, the WiFi has dropped — the clock retries every ten seconds and arrivals come back automatically when it reconnects.
The display flickers, restarts, or shows random pixels.
The matrix is power-hungry — up to 12 W at peak. A laptop USB port or a weak phone charger can't sustain that. Use a 5 V / 2 A or higher USB-C wall adapter. The one in the box is sized correctly; if you're using a different adapter, check its rating.
I want to start completely over.
You rarely need a full reset just to change settings: unplug the clock and plug it back in, and the setup form is reachable again for an hour after every boot — same QR, edit anything.
For a true factory reset, hold UP and DOWN simultaneously while plugging in the USB-C cable, for three seconds. The clock boots into factory recovery and restores its original firmware. After that, follow steps 1–4 above as if it were brand new.