This year’s InfoComm was the first I attended and there was a lot to take in. While I could have easily filled my time with the on-site classes, instead I spent the good majority of my two days on the floor walking every aisle and perusing every vendor. After some time to process, I‘ve settled on what was promising from the AV/IT perspective.
“Collaboration” is the label that I saw in every booth with AV/IT solutions and includes everything from multi-touch curved 4K displays with video over IP to telepresence robots. It can take on many shapes at many price points, but what I thought were the best solutions excelled at making the users feel comfortable at the wheel through simplicity and familiarity. There are many ways to go about this, however if we want to exceed expectations and really get the most out of the available hardware the best way going forward is to leverage mobile devices. There were a couple of standouts that did this exceptionally well.
The Kapp whiteboards by Smart are a great example of this philosophy. They capitalized on the familiarity of whiteboards and updated them with Bluetooth, near-field, and QR code compatibility that allows the sharing and saving of whiteboard sessions with most mobile devices. Upgrade to the newer model sporting a 4K touchscreen and they offer improved capabilities, including allowing remote users to edit the session as well.
Another company called Crunchy Tech didn’t reinvent the iPad so much as they have supersized it into what they call “Padzilla”. They currently offer an 80” touchscreen with an iPhonesque bezel that runs customized software on a Mac Mini to create a touchscreen iOS experience without the screen formatting issues that come with using Apple’s Airplay. Similar to Smart, they valued the interface so much that they didn’t try to make another one.
Mobile device companies have already spent the R & D dollars on developing easy to use interfaces (in most cases) so why try to reinvent the wheel? By focusing on extending mobile capabilities rather than duplicating them they’ve saved reams of paper on needless manuals and all but guaranteed themselves a bigger booth at InfoComm next year.
Cy McCormick
IT Jr. Systems Admin
Alford Media Services, Inc.
