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?

Use a lower cost alternative

[tres]

You're talking about a lot of capital investment just roaming around the park. I imagine your corp will already be putting the responsibility onto the client for return of an operational device.

It seems that the best way to recoup costs is not to buy some ruggedized, high-cost version of something that may or may not be popular. Think about the industry as a whole; you probably can't count on any end-user device being attractive to customers for more than a year. There will always be newer and better to replace the older.

Just bulk buy the regular version of the device for a reduced price and rent a protective jacket as an additional cost.

This a) provides an additional revenue stream (think embroidered team logos and reselling your device for markup), and b) reaffirms to the client the idea that it is, in fact, their responsibility to return the device in good working order. Protective sleeves are easily replaceable by anyone. Rather than paying a tech lots of dollars to repair a ruggedized device, you can replace protective covers with minimal overhead.

Re:Use a lower cost alternative

[Myself]

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.

Motorola

[$exyNerdie]

I believe that motorola builds a lot of weatherproof ruggerized devices running Windows CE and other pda style operating systems.... I know this because one of my friend works for a fortune 500 company that sells meat and they needed such devices in pig farms!!

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.

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 :->