We recently had an email from a potential customer highlighting that we are very marketing heavy on our website and he actually wanted more factual data. We thought his questions we very relevant and good enough to turn into a blog post so here we are. Sir, thank you for your contribution, you know who you are!
Does your software come with the screen?
Yes, it does. We provide two pieces of software with our LED screens. The first piece of software is TouchIT Notes. The license that comes with the LEDs is a “Presenter” license. This means that you can connect a Tablet or Cell Phone device to have full mouse control of your LED from the device. The idea here is that this control gives you the freedom to move around the room interactive with your audience whilst being able to change things on the LED.
In addition to the mouse control the “Presenter License” allows you to connect 5 users to the LED. This allows these five users to have a collaborative workspace where they can annotate together as well as being able to receive any content that is being shown on their own device. For more information on TouchIT Notes, check out this blog post. The license is a single Presenter license that is a user level license. This means the user can log into any machine that has TouchIT Notes installed and use their own account.
The second piece of software that comes with the TouchIT LED is Oktopus. Oktopus is primarily designed for the K-12 market and is a an annotation and content creation tool. It allows you as a teacher to use the interactive tools on screen to create content for the students. In addition, you can also share this content out to Chromebooks (5 users as standard) so that students can then respond from there chromebooks to activities created on the Interactive Flat Panel. The license that comes with the LED is a single user license which resides at machine level e.g. you can install it on one machine.
Does the software cost extra?
The software that is highlighted above comes as standard at no extra cost. If you wish to purchase more collaboration licenses, e.g. you want to increase the number of people that can collaborate from 5 to say 40, then this license is an additional purchase. With TouchIT Oktopus, the Chrome Collaboration if you want more than 5 students to connect is an additional cost, as too are extra Oktopus licenses or indeed a site license.
Do the screens work with other people’s software?
The general rule with the TouchIT Interactive Flat Panels is that anything software related the can run on your PC or MAC and can be controlled with a mouse, can be run on the TouchIT IFP. If you are looking to run other company’s interactive software, please do make sure you have the correct license to do so. There is however, nothing on the TouchIT IFP that will prevent ANY software from running.
What are the features of your software – what is it capable of doing (besides the obvious touch functions)?
I think we have answered this above however I will include some links to blog posts that may be of interest.
How to import Smart Notebook Files
How to import Promethean ActiveStudio Files
How much do the various screens weigh? What kind of connections do they have (HDMI, Display Port, VGA, etc.)? Where are they located?
The weight of each of the screens does vary. To give you an idea, a 55″ weighs 104lbs, a 65″ 130lbs a 70″ 190lbs and an 84″ 230lbs. The connections depend on whether they are HD or 4K. HD models have 3 HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort and a VGA. 4K models have a UHD HDMI, UHD Displayport and 2 HDMI. Full specifications are in the product brochures in the downloads section under LED and product documentation. The location of the ports vary on the sizes. You can see these from the CAD drawings again in Documentation of the Downloads page.
Do you screens have standard VESA mounting points?
Yes – the actual hole spacing varies from model to model so please check the brochure. 400 x 400, 440 x 400 and 600 x 400 are common on our LEDs.
I would also like more detail about how mobile devices connect with your displays – Bluetooth, Air, DLNA, etc.?
TouchIT Notes – this piece of software uses WIFI to connect to the LEDs. In reality, you are connecting to the computer that is powering the LED screen as there is no processing done on the LED. Due to the fact that TouchIT Notes can use external servers, you don’t have to be on the same network or even subnet to connect. This means for example you could have a separate Staff and Student network in a school or college and a Corporate and Guest network in a business environment and still make use of the software. You would need to check the network requirements which again can be found in the downloads section of the website under TouchIT Notes.
Oktopus – this software connects via an IP address through a browser. That means life is much easier if you are on the same subnet at the host, but if your routing is configured correctly, you dont need to be. You also need to have access to port 8080 which is a secondary web browsing port and most firewalls normally allow this. You may also have to configure in/out access on any local firewalls or Windows Firewall you have implemented on your machines.
Hope you found this post useful. If you are considering deploying interactive flat panels in your establishment, then it is well worth downloading “Bring Back My Whiteboard” the book written by our CEO which is the definitive guide to deploying Interactive Flat Panels.
