Stadium WiFi and Weatherproof Tablet PCs?

StadiumOutfitter asks: "I've been tasked with setting up a wireless network for an open air stadium - not just for internet access but potentially with in seat food/drink orders and even interactive game related content. That's the easy part, really. What I'd really like to find is a rugged and weatherproof handheld device (tablet or PDA style) that can do Wifi. The plan is to rent them out during gamedays for people who want to participate, but can't bring a laptop. Any suggestions?

Comments

Here's one. Looks good but expensive.

[petard]

Just such a beast was mentioned here on slashdot recently. It's a WinCE device with two CF slots, so it's perfectly capable of 802.11x. Read a review here or order one here.

It's quite pricy, but if you think you can rent them out (especially at pro-sporting event level prices!), I suspect you can recover the cost pretty neatly. Can you tell us which stadium it is?

psion netpad fits well

[rekrutacja]

it's small, it's ruggadised, it goes wireless, it's programmable. oh, and yes, it's expensive.

http://www.psionteklogix.com/public.aspx?s=com&p =P roducts&pCat=128&pID=1086

Panasonic Toughbooks are a fit

[Hollinger]

The Panasonic Toughbook might be interesting to you, but, alas, they are expensive.

http://www.panasonic.com/computer/toughbook/home .a sp

DIY embedded terminals?

[x00101010x]

I've given some thought to something similar. Low cost, mass produced terminals for public schools to help further electronic textbooks.

First off, I must agree with the idea of ruggedized, waterproof tablets. Laptops can easily be worn out in one season of ham-fisted sports-fans opening, closing, dropping, etc. Also, the spilled beer, weather, etc is a big issue.
What I would include in the spec would be:

1. No external moving parts (ex: laptop screens, swivel antenna, etc)
2. No moving internal parts (ex: harddrives, fans, etc)
3. Touch screen (not tablet, those pens get expensive, a sylus is cheep).
4. Sealed, waterproof. (obvious)
5. Rugged, and oversized (for protection and loss prevention.
6. Wireless, but not specifically 802.11b/g
7. Of course, cheaper the better.

So, the 'no moving parts' bit is part of the ruggedized theory, no hinges to be broken, no prodtruding bits to be snapped off, no harddrives to get nuked from drops, no fans to get clogged or broken (imagine popcorn/catsup all over the fan in your laptop).
Plain old touchscreen beats a tablet because you can touch it with anything. With a tablet you need the special pen, and if you teather it you just violated the first item. Besides, no matter how well you tie it on, it'll get broken off eventually. With a plain touchscreen it can be operated with a finger, or a cheap stylus, or even a regular pen, also your cost drops. On a similar note, it should be in a protective case, and sealed shut. like an oversized version of those rubberized sleaves you can get for iPaqs. This will protect the device, can have an easily replacible window (greasy fingers, sharp pens,random scratches, etc), and with large rubberized edges will reduce the chances of being dropped, lessen the damage when it does happen, and prevent the patrons from hurting themselves.
The protective casing can also help loss prevention by making it too large to slip in a purse or backpack, and can be colored to match the decor of the venue. A friend of mine does something similar with a laser pointer he hands to children to ask questions and point things out at the planitarium he runs.
On the issue of wireless, perhaps it would be cheaper to setup bluetooth access points around each section and have those use 802.11b/g or regular cat5 to link into the network. This reduces the cost per unit as well as increases battery life (you're going to have to recharge these things, and the battery will be the bulk of the weight).
An additional benefit to bluetooth is it's short range, regular access throughout the stadiums, but setup special bluetooth gateways around the exits that will alert security if one of the units is about to leave the venue.

Now here comes the big part. You don't make these things from normal computers running winCE or anything even x86 platform. Set up big servers somewhere safe and put all your processing power there. Make the units run off microcontrollers, running linux or some other free OS, with just enough capability to 1) run the touchscreen (serial or USB HID), the bluetooth, tcp/ip stack, the LCD and some form of terminal software (vnc or a remote X windows session). So then, all the user sessions are running on some beefy servers that can each handle 100 clients running a web browser, or macromedia flash, whatever you're doing the apps in.
Now the clients can easily run off a 16MB CF card using midori-linux + iceWM + rsh (like what i'm running my Compaq IA1 internet appliance on).

So, to summarize, you'd end up with:

1. Micro controller/single board computer (modified ethernut, PC104, etc)
2. Low power consumption/heat output
3. Touchscreen (USB HID or Serial)
4. LCD/OLED screen
5. 16MB CF storage
6. linux + X11 + iceWM + rsh
7. linux servers hosting remote sessions supporting webbrowser/flash/whatever
8. Bluetooth tcp/ip access
9. Bluetooth gateways bridging to cat5/wifi in each section (still cheaper than 802.11b in each unit)
10. Rubberized, protective (device and patron) loss prevention reducing casings
11. and a partridge in a pear tree?

anyways, sorry for the rambling braindump format, i'm done now.

Peer into the future: In too deep!

[UID1000000]

First off, I might be repeating what others have said here but there are a few things to consider, price, prob of damage/theft, ways to track and prevent theft, and programming capabilities.

Here is what I'd say, go with a PDA (PocketPC or Palm) but you'd have to develop some sort of automatic wireless backup software that runs the backup of the softare and data before the battery dies, like at a certain point, 10% of battery left. Otherwise you'd be tired out by constantly reviving and restoring data to the PDAs. This is one of the most annoying featurs of PDAs. Tablets are nice but they're too costly and they're too large, apart from that ALL tablets use the electronic pen. ----The reason this is is b/c if you were trying to write a nice note on a 13" screen your hand would constantly leave a mark in the note you are writing.---- Apart from that Tablet's still only get about the same amount of battery life as a PDA. Furthermore your looking at a harddrive faluire (possibly) each time you have one of the drunk morons (sorry to be an insensitive clod) drop the tablet. A PDA has a flash HD, of sorts, that doesn't lose data when it's dropped. PDAs also usually come with 802.11b integrated (if you go with the PocketPC or Tungsten Palm) which is a bonus.

Apart from price and prob of damage, look at tracking. You'll need to setup some sort of tracking server that would log usage of the units, software to check them out/in, some sort of way to locate them and keep them from leaving the building. I'm not thinking GPS here b/c of that's what all the ACs are going to shout out (clod again) but I'm thinking EAS tags and/or RFID tags. RFID tags can be scanned to give you a general proximity plus an EAS tag with a gate can keep the unit from leaving. Perhaps just an EAS tag would work fine without an RFID.

Lsatly, think about the software that you'll need, how are you going to do all the things that you'll need to do? Someone think of what he/she is going to need. I'm thinking server side software to authenticate, logging of traffic, load balancing, proxy server, POS software, anything else?

Tell MGMT that they're nuts. An easier solution would be to integrate the units right into the seats. Put something sturdy right into the seat in front of the person and tether it. Only put it in classy sections, like bottom, suites, etc. I understand this means a larger investment up front and possibly less return vs number of units but it seems like it would be less of a hassle.

Palm Tungsten C

[macemoneta]

The Palm Tungsten C is (relatively) cheap now ($399/retail qty 1) and you can slip them into a ziplock bag (and use them that way, with the thumb-board). It will keep the units clean, protect the screen from scratching, and make it water resistant/spill proof. I do this when I'm working in less than clean/dry conditions.

They have WiFi (including WEP-128, and a VPN client compatible with Poptop), a graphical SSL web browser, an email client, and can even do SSH2. It's an Xscale 400MHz based PDA, so it may even run Linux some day. :-)

Sharp zaurus SL-6000

[d^2b]

- integrated wifi
- runs linux, so nobody will steal it :-)
- 1 meter drop tested

I dunno if the gadgets are any good, but you
sound like who sharp had in mind.

I also don't know how water-resistant they are.
FWIW, a random anecdote claimed that they worked
ok after drying out.

But hey, if you wanted something other than random
anecdotes, you wouldn't ask here would you :->

Otterbox.com

[mbrinkm]

A co-worker pointed this website out.

Otterbox.com - Armor PDA Cases

These cases look like a good solution to your needs.

kangaroo.tv

[Anonymous Coward]

I just saw this exact at the Long Beach Grand Prix yesterday. They were AMAZING. I couldnt afford to rent them for the $60 something that they were asking, but i really wanted to. This is exactly what you are looking for. Its targeted for a sports audience, and the multimdeia delivery was brilliant. Check it out at

http://www.kangaroo.tv/