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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?
http://www.pocketpcdn.com/articles/kiosk.html
If you go w/ a PPC solution, this will let you force any program to run in "Kiosk" mode, meaning none of the Windows Mobile interface (close button, other programs, etc) will be accessible.
...and that's all there is to it.
Because people do not take as good care of items they rent as items they own.
roaming waitreses and waiters that use the handheld and key in the orders to be delivered to the seats, deploy on premium seating first. then expand. self serve is cool but sometimes too anoying.
I agree that the failure rate between rugged and standard hardware won't be different enough to justify the price delta. People will find a way to break the rugged stuff, if only to prove that it can be broken.
A padded neoprene sleeve with a vinyl window, slipped over a device that was designed well in the first place, should be plenty for most applications. If you really want rugged hardware, Google is much faster than Ask Slashdot, and it has a lower percentage of comments saying "you should've googled, idiot!".
Test screens for sunlight viewability. If beeps and boops are required, test speakers for audibility. Test batteries for operation over a wide temperature range, and make sure the manufacturer will replace any batteries that fail or degrade prematurely. Make sure dust and crud won't gum up the buttons or charging contacts.
Good luck getting wireless connectivity with no bits that stick out. Antennae don't last long, and they're hard to weatherproof.
The wireless part has me curious. How does your radio scheme deal with huge numbers of users in a small area? If you're trying to broadcast content to all of them at once, do the protocols support doing it with a single transmission? Does the application software?
Furthermore, for interactive applications where the user devices will be transmitting, does the system deal robustly and fairly with overload situations? Does efficiency plummet as utilization rises?
Given that the antennae integrated into handhelds are scarcely better than dummy loads, what sort of antenna gain do you need on the access point end to provide plenty of SNR? Consider the radio environment of the venue, given that metal surfaces will cause reflections and raise the noise floor. Also consider that reflections might make it difficult to divide the area into zones served by multiple access points, and devices might hop between points sporadically and quickly due to signal fluctuations.
Your security concerns are overblown, since these are units that would presumably be rented from a booth in the concourse. I was initially thinking of that myself, but you can solve it in a very low-tech way. Just require a credit card to rent the unit. Any units that don't return or that return with signs of abuse can be charged to the cardholder that rents them. Problem solved. It's the same way that rental cars work today, and a rental car is much higher value than a rental PDA.
The ideas about ruggedizing COTS units are good, but consider the labor involved. Your pricing comments hold true for the ruggedized units; you could negotiate a favorable rate for a bulk purchase + advertizing to bring the cost down and perhaps come out ahead of the labor-intensive solution of ruggedizing your own.
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Wouldn't the likelihood for rental unit losses or damage outweigh the potential revenue? A series of distributed stations in the aisles for drink/food orders, sure. But, those rental units are going to have beer spilled on them; they're going to be dropped (a lot); people are going to accidentally drop them in the trash (and forget) them or drop them in the urinal trough and not want to pick them up again. You could make the renters responsible for the replacement cost, but would you rent something if the likelihood of having to shell out $2000 was high?