Long Distance Touchscreen Boards

[UberGinge]

Good afternoon,

 

How do you manage connecting to touchscreen boards over longer than normal distances? We are looking into solutions for working around USB-C max distances in certain rooms. 

 

Currently we have a mixture of USB-A -> USB-A active extension cables with 10 meter HDMI runs. This does run into some issues with Windows reporting "too many hubs" which is likely due to the length of the runs. 

 

What solutions are you using to get touch screen functionality at upwards of 10 meters (~32 feet for the freedom units) in your classrooms?

 

If it helps at all, the NEW boards that will be going in place are ActivPanel LE 86".

[simpsonj]

Does the Screen itself not have software that allows laptops to share their screen and touch capability? Looks like the ActivPanel has a Screen Share app, I would try that in the first instance. If you're connecting Desktops, maybe adding a USB WiFi adapter might be an idea?

[Rob_D]

USB over Ethernet adapters. Not used them for USB before, but Kramer have always been pretty reliable for us.

https://www1.kramerav.com/Product/EXT3-U-KIT

[dhicks]

1 hour ago, UberGinge said:

What solutions are you using to get touch screen functionality at upwards of 10 meters (~32 feet for the freedom units) in your classrooms?

 

We've tended to use £60-ish-from-Amazon combined HDMI / USB extenders:

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/PWAYTEK-Extender-Keyboard-Control-Ethernet/dp/B0C13Z1XV1/ref=sr_1_3

 

They work pretty well, although they do occasionaly freeze up and need a quick switch-off-and-on-again - we suspect putting them on a timer switch so they go off over the weekends would probably be enough. For the model we have, just the transmitter end needs a power adaptor, the other end is powered via the ethernet cable, so one less cable at the other end. We haven't found an affordable 4K version yet, but our classroom desktops are all 1080p and most people use their screens mirrored so hasn't been a huge issue yet.

[UberGinge]

18 hours ago, simpsonj said:

Does the Screen itself not have software that allows laptops to share their screen and touch capability? Looks like the ActivPanel has a Screen Share app, I would try that in the first instance. If you're connecting Desktops, maybe adding a USB WiFi adapter might be an idea?

Great point, might actually have a reasonable use case for adding the boards to the network in that case. Might solve a lot of headaches alone!

 

17 hours ago, Rob_D said:

USB over Ethernet adapters. Not used them for USB before, but Kramer have always been pretty reliable for us.

https://www1.kramerav.com/Product/EXT3-U-KIT

Interesting, never considered that they could do something like that. We have some HDMI over Ethernet setups in place already so might be worth a look.

 

17 hours ago, dhicks said:

 

We've tended to use £60-ish-from-Amazon combined HDMI / USB extenders:

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/PWAYTEK-Extender-Keyboard-Control-Ethernet/dp/B0C13Z1XV1/ref=sr_1_3

 

They work pretty well, although they do occasionaly freeze up and need a quick switch-off-and-on-again - we suspect putting them on a timer switch so they go off over the weekends would probably be enough. For the model we have, just the transmitter end needs a power adaptor, the other end is powered via the ethernet cable, so one less cable at the other end. We haven't found an affordable 4K version yet, but our classroom desktops are all 1080p and most people use their screens mirrored so hasn't been a huge issue yet.

This might get complicated with the existing docks - I appreciate we can just plug the USB into the dock but we are already hitting weird issues with docks as it is.

 

Honestly sounds like it might just be a case of getting the boards on the same WiFi as the Staff devices and using the screen sharing!

[dhicks]

24 minutes ago, UberGinge said:

Honestly sounds like it might just be a case of getting the boards on the same WiFi as the Staff devices and using the screen sharing!

 

Depending on screen-sharing system / technology, some of the ones now built-in to boards are cloud-based services, with the board and the client connecting via a cloud service, so local network access between the two devices might not be needed.

[Andrew_Coates]

As mentioned this can be achieved wirelessly on a SMART IFP using SMART Mirror and will provide touch back when using windows. This can be restricted to Local Network only, or over the internet. Happy to provide a demo if anyone needs it.

For complete transparency, I used to have a personal account here on EduGeek for many happy years. I now work for SMART and will just try and provide info from SMART where appropriate.