Tell me about meeting room displays/managers that don't suck

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > Tell me about meeting room displays/managers that don't suck

bolind: Jun 19, 2005; Pillbug

My company has meeting room displays (thingie in front that says whether the room is booked or not, lights up in green or red depending, ability to book right then and there on the touch screen, you catch the drift) from a company called Evoko. They're crap. Expensive, no longer made, the software should embarrass a third semester CS student, etc.

Tell me about alternatives that don't suck. It's basically just a small computer with a touch screen, and a hook into an Exchange server. How hard can it be.

Link to Evoko: https://www.evoko.se/products/evoko-liso/

# ? Feb 2, 2019 11:58

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# ? Apr 29, 2024 10:37

Canuckistan: Jan 14, 2004; I'm the greatest thing since World War III.; Soiled Meat

We use EIOBoard from Savance. It's clunky and the AD integration sucksssss (doesn't support Security Groups, so you need to choose an entire OU or individual users).

Cheapish though and it does have a kiosk mode.

# ? Feb 5, 2019 12:04

bolind: Jun 19, 2005; Pillbug

Thanks, I'll check it out!

# ? Feb 6, 2019 13:07

User: May 3, 2002; by FactsAreUseless; Nap Ghost

Google built their own with arduinos and cheapo small LCD displays. Never seen a better solution.

# ? Feb 10, 2019 20:23

bolind: Jun 19, 2005; Pillbug

There's no reason that these should be a grand in a world where you can get an entire Raspberry Pi web frame kit for 125 quid.

# ? Feb 10, 2019 20:27

MrMoo: Sep 14, 2000

There's a lot that is expensive, this eink solution looks interesting,

https://www.hackster.io/team-visionect/e-paper-room-booking-system-with-google-calendar-c06859

Compared with this priced system,

https://getjoan.com/

bolind posted:

There's no reason that these should be a grand in a world where you can get an entire Raspberry Pi web frame kit for 125 quid.

The Pi based systems all tend to be quite deep and not good with heat dissipation, especially the faster 3. I'm looking for a good set of gear for a music teaching studio, and for a hobby project to cover a wall with NFL & MLB team scores.

I'm just working with some third party conference room hardware for inside the room, omg what awful software. It has an API exposed by a plain text TCP port with like a middle school coded message protocol. I wrote a server that will attempt to reverse connect into connecting devices and convert the API into something you can access via WebSockets.

code:

<P><UN>su</UN><Pwd></Pwd><Cmd>WakeUp</Cmd><P1>
</P1><P2>
</P2><P3></P3><P4></P4><P5></P5><P6></P6><P7></P7>
<P8></P8>
<P9></P9><P10></P10></P>

Copy & pasted from their documentation, with formatting. Responses are pipe | delimited fields in \r\n delimited messages, and will include \n separated text. Errors are all reported via Error<code> with explanation in the docs.

MrMoo fucked around with this message at 14:14 on Feb 11, 2019

# ? Feb 11, 2019 13:52

Thanks Ants: May 21, 2004; #essereFerrari

Steelcase make one that is meant to be OK, so do Crestron, but they�re probably all poo poo as well as being incredibly expensive.

iPad-based solutions just end up turning the batteries into balloons that then try and escape the case - they really aren�t designed to be digital signs.

I�ll be watching this thread because people like shiny things and I don�t think a grand a time is good value to avoid having to look in a calendar.

# ? Feb 12, 2019 19:26

emdash: Oct 19, 2003; and?

Crestron's bad, though the hardware and UI may look nice, every one i've encountered has atrocious input lag

Could well be the best existing solution though :/

# ? Feb 13, 2019 03:54

~Coxy: Dec 9, 2003; R.I.P. Inter-OS Sass - b.2000AD d.2003AD

Our Crestrons have never worked. I think the building is like 7 years old, complete fit-out, everything designed together.

# ? Feb 13, 2019 04:21

nielsm: Jun 1, 2009

We have an iPad-based setup and this is 1000% true:

Thanks Ants posted:

iPad-based solutions just end up turning the batteries into balloons that then try and escape the case - they really aren't designed to be digital signs.

Don't anyone make a tablet that instead of a battery and wifi antenna take a simple Ethernet jack with PoE?

# ? Feb 15, 2019 20:40

Thanks Ants: May 21, 2004; #essereFerrari

Yes and they will charge you three times the price of a tablet for the privilege

https://www.aopen.com/GB_en/products_info/eTILE-X15

# ? Feb 15, 2019 20:41

Mr Shiny Pants: Nov 12, 2012

Thanks Ants posted:

Yes and they will charge you three times the price of a tablet for the privilege

https://www.aopen.com/GB_en/products_info/eTILE-X15

Seems nice though.

# ? Feb 15, 2019 21:02

Thanks Ants: May 21, 2004; #essereFerrari

There's a big market on Alibaba for $130 Android touchscreens that are PoE, but I'd have reservations about putting them on a network with access to corporate calendars.

# ? Feb 15, 2019 21:05

nielsm: Jun 1, 2009

Thanks Ants posted:

There's a big market on Alibaba for $130 Android touchscreens that are PoE, but I'd have reservations about putting them on a network with access to corporate calendars.

You should probably put them on an isolated network with only access to DHCP and a web server offering limited interactions for the meeting system (and no internet).

# ? Feb 15, 2019 21:39

bolind: Jun 19, 2005; Pillbug

To wrap this up, the company decided to go for Joan, which does look promising, especially the no cables aspect.

# ? Mar 20, 2019 15:40

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# ? Apr 29, 2024 10:37

bolind: Jun 19, 2005; Pillbug

bolind posted:

To wrap this up, the company decided to go for Joan, which does look promising, especially the no cables aspect.

Final verdict now that my Joans are up and running:

THE GOOD
No cables.
Portal is very nice and reasonably intuitive.
Magnetic mount is super nice, they just snap into place, very precisely.
Screen contrast is good
Possibility of custom logo and custom QR Wi-Fi code.
Long battery life.

THE BAD
Mini jack plug/cable don�t mate super nicely, needs a little extra shove.
Latency is a bit high when using the touchscreen.
The evokos with their green/red light made it super easy to see the status of a meeting room from across the office.
The meeting room name itself could be bigger.
Still expensive.
Eink display has some ghosting.

All in all, we�re pretty happy with them.

# ? Jul 26, 2019 07:40

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > Tell me about meeting room displays/managers that don't suck