OmniProII Touchscreens

[electron]

You can do it right now if you use a vpn tunnel between the 2 locations, and use the regular way of connecting. This puts less load on the XEP or the touch screen, and it also offers other benefits.

 

[upstatemike]

So if you use VPN for your secure connection what is the point of the XEP supporting encrypted data?

 

[gcimmino]

So if you use VPN for your secure connection what is the point of the XEP supporting encrypted data?

In that case (connecting two locations via a VPN), none.

For the vast majority of folks that would want to use the XEP's applet over the internet from a remote location, then SSL (between the remote browser/applet and the XEP) is a "good thing".

Remember, security is a many splendored thing. You need encryption to prevent eavesdropping and authentication to ensure either (or both) ends of the connection are "who they say they are". Protection from eavesdropping may not be as important on your local net -- depending on how secure your wireless access point is , but is more important over the internet.

My preference is for encryption and strong authentication at all points.

 

[upstatemike]

Multiple IP camera viewing is coming, then look out CEDIA in September!!!

According to the specs there is already a built-in web browser. Why can't you use that to view IP cameras already?

Also, if the Elk screen is Windows CE, can I use it in native mode at first and then later convert to run something like CQC or MainLobby?

 

[Dean Roddey]

Also, if the Elk screen is Windows CE, can I use it in native mode at first and then later convert to run something like CQC or MainLobby?

No one has actually tried our .Net Viewer on the Elk touch screen yet, though in theory it has the correct OS level and all that. Keep in mind that these types of small touch panels will never compete with a full bore PC based system in terms of slickness of interfaces and graphical power. So there are limitations in terms of how fancy you can make the display, but if that's an acceptable limitation, then it would probably be a reaonable way to go.

 

[upstatemike]

Keep in mind that these types of small touch panels will never compete with a full bore PC based system in terms of slickness of interfaces and graphical power.

So what would be some examples of full bore PC touch screens? I still need them to be surface mount units and in the same $800 - $900 price range.

 

[electron]

If you are handy, you could build a nice slim enclosure for the touch screen, or keep your eyes open for a tablet PC, I have seen them for around $1k.

 

[upstatemike]

If you are handy, you could build a nice slim enclosure for the touch screen, or keep your eyes open for a tablet PC, I have seen them for around $1k.

Unfortunately I am not all that handy and $1K is a little above my budget for touch screens. The HAI units are are just over $700 for the video versions, are surface mountable, and run off a single Cat5. I don't want to stray too far from that price and form factor.

 

[electron]

What about building a fake wall, so you can flush mount the screens?

 

[upstatemike]

What about building a fake wall, so you can flush mount the screens?

You're missing the point. Old house. No fake wall options. No fishing wires in existing walls. Everything must be surface mounted and will probably be wired with wiremold.

Besides, I am not putting these in rooms that are going to be remodeled or anything. There is no option to do anything that would require repairs to the existing paint or wallpaper.

 

[Dean Roddey]

If you are wanting to wall mount, then your options start to get thinner. The UTMA ones are an option, though not cheap. In a way, by the time you buy a mega manly machine to drive 8 UTMA screens and the UTMA screens themselves and software, you could just about buy a set of very tiny PCs and a cat-5 KVM extender and a 7" lilluput standard touch screen and go that way.

Basically you'd be looking at like $750 for a tiny, mini-ITX PC with XP, $200'ish for the extender, and $250'ish for the Lillliput. So about $1200'ish for each set, one per room. Mount the far end of the extender in the ceiling above each one and drop the video, USB, and power cables down to the display.

Since CQC is fully networked this type of configuration doesn't make any different to it. One of the machines you'd want to have a little more manly, to serve as the overall CQC server for the whole system, plus you could mount a 15" screen off of that one if you wanted to, as a main interface in a common area, as long as you have a local screen you could switch to for local maintenance. That would give you a large resolution screen for the main interface point. You could actually distribute the CQC functions among the small machines if you wanted, and make one the main server with better hard drive, and get way with just the small machines.

The neater, optimum way to do something like this would be a blade server rack, but that would cost more. But it does get you centralized maintenance, complete reliability since they are hard wired displays, pretty reasonable price per screen, full graphical power for interfaces and exellect reponse since each room basically has their own little machine.

It's something to consider.

 

[upstatemike]

That is getting into some serious money. If I was going up into that range I would probably be taking another look at the Control4 system and screens.

 

[Dean Roddey]

If you go that route, you'll pretty much need to have an installer do it for you, which would put you considerably higher in the end I would imagine. And you'd definitely want to get some opinions from non-aligned professional installers before you went that route. There's a lot of negative impressions out there about C4 among the pros.

Anyway, how much are the Elk touch screens? I thought there were also in the $1K range, right? It seems like pretty much anything that's going to provide a reasonably powerful touch screen in each room is going to be something around that $800 to $1200 per room type of range.

You could do the Rad-IO setup, if you could live with the 240x160 screen real-estate and cover 8 rooms for a couple $K. But moving up into larger screen sizes is going to get you into considerably more bucks.

 

[upstatemike]

Anyway, how much are the Elk touch screens? I thought there were also in the $1K range, right? It seems like pretty much anything that's going to provide a reasonably powerful touch screen in each room is going to be something around that $800 to $1200 per room type of range.

HAI is a little over $700 and ELK is closer to $900. I don't know what the RCS one would have been.