Completely wireless touchscreen solution?

[JohnWPB]

Just a neat thought, and I thought I would share it. I personally do not have use for it at the moment, as I have ran all my wires already, but if I hadn't this would have been a nice option for sure!

I just got an email from Tiger Direct that mentioned a new wireless USB monitor connector. Combined with a wireless USB hub this could provide a solution for remote touch screens that would only need power ran to them. It is not by any means cheap at around $300 for both devices, however it would be a great way to install a touchscreen monitor in one location, and hide the PC in another location entirely, with no wires at all between the PC and the monitor! It also looks like you could hook up to 6 monitors to a single PC. Of course 2 people using different screens to control the system would conflict with each other, but that is probably unlikely in most situations.

 

[mustangcoupe]

why would you need the wireless usb hub?

or would you be bringing other usb devices to the same place? or is this to run the touch screen?

 

[jay]

Good find, John. edited

 

[Rupp]

Dang that doesn't even include a monitor. You can buy an all in one touch screen Win CE PC for not much more here:
http://www.cubloc.com/product/05_02.php

These are getting good press on the HomeSeer message board when running the new HSTouch.

 

[electron]

Rupp, you are comparing 2 total different products here. You are comparing a large PDA with a video card which allows you to transmit the VGA signal without any wires.

 

[Rupp]

Well sort of but there are full PC's with monitors that can be setup for the cost of this transmission hardware.

 

[JohnWPB]

Well sort of but there are full PC's with monitors that can be setup for the cost of this transmission hardware.

Very true, but not all locations you want to place a monitor necessarily has a place to put a PC close to it.

Yea, there are CE clients out there for sure for around the same price if not less. The drawback is that you are pretty limited as to what software you can run on CE, and will be using it as a client most of the time. If all you want to do is display a webpage, or an app specifically written for CE (HSTouch) then CE would be the better way to go probably.

The main difference being, is you can use ANY touch screen monitor. Be it a 10", 15", 21" and install it just about anywhere, and hide the pc just about anywhere else.

Yes, the USB hub is for the touchscreen control, to make that wireless as well. If all you want is a remote monitor, say for video, you do not need the USB hub or a touchscreen monitor for that matter, just a standard $99 19" LCD screen. So for $300, you could put a 19" monitor where ever you like and transmit video to it, without the need to run wires.

I never said it was a cheap solution, in fact I noted otherwise in the first post..... Just that it is a nice way to hook up ANY touchscreen / standard monitor remotely with no wires ran from a PC to the monitor. Sometimes convenience just has to out weigh the cost

 

[drozwood90]

Just a bit too late! I already pulled my wires for my touchscreen!

 

[tmbrown97]

I'd love to see someone's review on the quality of it. I tried one of the early USB to VGA dongles as a way to add more monitors to a laptop - and was really unimpressed with the quality - I don't completely remember if there was an issue with Color - but I know it didn't handle motion well at all, so it'd be unusable for videos - it didn't even look great with animated powerpoints.

I don't know if that was a limitation of USB though or if it was just the component, so I'd still look at something like this - in fact, maybe I'll evaluate it for our conference rooms one of these days.

On a similar topic, I've tried a lot of the VGA over Cat5 extenders, and never been too impressed with quality - resolution is limited, and it doesn't look good if you blow up the image on a larger TV, but I was doing a project last week that needed to go over Cat5 as that's what was in place and it was going to run VGA to a 47" LCD. I tried a couple $200ish extenders and they wouldn't come close to a decent resolution. Finally found this (very expensive) extender: http://www.hdtvsupply.com/vgaviovcat5c.html - it's the best looking way I've seen yet for extending vga over Cat5 (I only had 1 run in place, otherwise I would've looked at HDMI over Cat5)...