Miracast deployment on a large scale

[Andthomson]

Hi People,

 

I was wondering if anyone out there has had any experience deploying a large scale of Miracast adaptors. We’ve ktited out about 50 rooms with the Microsoft Wireless Display Adaptor v2 and we are using Miracast enabled laptops for connectivity to projectors.

 

We’ve been trialling these for a few weeks now and finding a lot of random issues, with the devices requiring multiple attempts to connect to the WiDi adaptor, the connection randomly dropping and numerous errors saying that the wireless network is operating on a different channel to the wireless display adaptor itself.

 

The staff testing it are reverting back to cabling themselves back in and being tethered to their desks which means we are failing to deliver what we set out for which is giving them the freedom to move around the room whole projecting on screen and tidying up the look of the classrooms by eventually removing the cabling.

 

So my plea for help, if anyone had any experience of these devices on a large scale and any pointers in where to go from here I’d much appreciate it.

 

Devices are the Lenovo Yoga and the Surface Pro 4 running Windows 10 64bit Pro and Enterprise editions, the issues appear to be occurring across all devices and current builds (10240 thru to 1607) We’ve not attempted the anniversary update yet.

 

 

Cheers

 

Andrew

[gshaw]

We had one or two in to trial - when they work they're great but found similar amounts of niggly issues with the OS \ Wi-Fi connection. Often had errors about channel clashes or random connection failures as well.

 

Was blaming it on Win10 being flaky as it was on the earlier 10240 build but sounds like it hasn't improved.

[Arthur]

Did you try updating the Wi-Fi drivers and/or adapter firmware?

[Achandler]

We have 14 Microsoft Wireless Display Adapters.

 

We have had niggle issues with some rooms, others have been perfect. Without to much investigation it was fairly easy to establish that if the classroom you are in has anything other then a very strong wifi signal then you will have problems.

 

I think it is simply to do with the way that the WiFi cards are working, having to basically flick between sending data to the wifi network and the miracast dongle, often on different channels. Cheaper wireless cards probably aren't capable if the wireless network is to weak because it seems to "drain power" so to speak from the miracast side of things.

 

The solution seems to be to put a wifi point in the classrooms effected or obviously go back to cables. We have staff who will use a cable for a video and then wireless for a powerpoint, because that is the most reliable method. I have others who will only use a cable and then others that only use the miracast (though usually they have a wifi point in their room).

 

It is all rather buggy and I wonder if the more expensive Surface Pro 4 may have better cards in or if they all have that marvell card. We had less problems with a i5 over an i3.

[gshaw]

We were using Surface 3 devices in our tests. Seemed to be more reliable from my HTC One M8 if anything

 

After years of looking at workarounds for Bonjour Apple then sorted out Apple TV to make direct connections and that seems to work a bit more reliably. The iPad craze has died down now though so ironically not being used as much now the technology has matured enough to make use of it.

Edited October 7, 2016 by gshaw

[APMerry]

How did this go for you? We did the same thing in September in 60 classrooms, cant say I recommend it.

[mtillbrook]

Not used them on a large scale but i have certainly found them to be a lot more stable after a firmware update. Theres an app in the MS store that handles the updates etc