A/V By Design Releases pdaPanel
Oct 27, 2005 8:00 AM
A/V By Design released pdaPanel, a touch panel development environment for the Palm OS. PdaPanel allows the control system developer to program layouts and system commands on a PC platform, then transfer the information to a customer’s Palm PDA.
PdaPanel features a one-way user interface for Ethernet-enabled control systems and devices over the customer’s 802.11b wireless network using customizable ASCII strings with optional carriage return and line feed. Each panel provides up to 36 buttons per page and up to 25 pages for a total of 900 buttons. Any button can be programmed to initiate a page flip and button sensitivity can be adjusted to fine tune its performance with the controlled device. The software may be used with integrated control systems, serial port servers, IR port servers, or individual devices that accept ASCII strings. The program also provides optional programmer-defined polling for connection monitoring.
Besides its economic advantages, the main benefits of using a PDA as a control system interface are its size and portability. The program does not inhibit or disable any current feature or application on the PDA. The interface uses WiFi instead of IR, so there is no need to be in the line of sight of the receiver. The user simply brings the panel within the range of the control system or device’s wireless access point, starts the program, and begins controlling the system, and because the panel sends ASCII strings in a client/server relationship, it uses no Java, ActiveX, or HTML.
PdaPanel can be used in nearly any control system setting such as boardrooms, houses of worship, auditoriums, medical facilities, and courtrooms. In residential applications, homeowners can have a separate panel for each member of the family for control of lighting, AV, alarm, and HVAC systems.
Facility administrators will find pdaPanel useful as an enhancement to their current control system’s user interface as well as the ability to initiate room configuration changes on the fly. And system technicians will find the portable interface especially useful for AV systems testing and troubleshooting. PdaPanel is licensed per developer for an unlimited number of displays and includes all necessary redistributables.
For more information about the pdaPanel, visit www.avbydesign.us.
