Different pieces for office automation: meeting rooms, curtains, lighting and so on



    Hello! Now I’ll show you a bunch of toys that help make office life better. For example, do not fight because of the meeting room and at first glance understand its loading. I’ll tell you what the rake is, how to do it right in advance, and what to do if it didn’t work out in advance, and you need to improve the office space very cheaply tomorrow.

    Let's start with the reservation system of the meeting rooms and informing about what is happening there. Traditionally, these are such screens, tablets, as shown above in the photo. Our in the office with a touch screen, calendar and a bunch of features, the usual one is just a monitor and a web service to it, looking at the company's intranet.

    There are 3-5 normal industrial solutions of the “set and do not touch for years” series - these are manufacturers AMX, Crestron, Extron and others. Actually, these are top brands, and they have a whole stack of solutions: video routing (needed for those situations when the video call button to the dispatcher is pressed on the panel), switching, display.

    Negotiations



    This is how Four Seasons chat management systems look like. The system

    features are as follows: you can create a certain Digital Signage with the output of various information, plus hang up connectors to MS Exchange, Lotus Notes and Google services. This is if you need a network of such pieces: they download a schedule from Exchange and can send schedule updates there themselves. Non-touch screens simply show what and how. Touchscreens allow you to add meetings yourself and enjoy all sorts of joy such as video calls. And also view the employment of the desired meeting room for a year ahead with almost one touch.

    I think I’ll guess if I say that you may not really need a network. If the main problem of the meeting rooms is that they just need to be booked in advance without whist and courtesans (without automatic selection of the equipment for the meeting room for the air conferencing, heating and auto test, etc.), then the most cheap solution is the most.

    One small panel with a screen is taken, inside which a mini-server is also wired. A hole is made in the wall, the power is connected, the LAN - and now you have a new device online. If this is, for example, Extron or another famous brand - this thing is given its own mail and access to Exchange, and it picks up letters with the necessary conversation in a copy. We arranged a meeting for Vasya, Petya, Lena and meeting room No. 4 - contraption will write this to himself on the schedule. If the contraption is also sensory, you can create an appointment directly from it by going to the meeting room with your feet. Such a “lonely panel” costs about one hundred thousand rubles according to the price (monitor behind glass with a mirror, the player plays any content, integration with that, operator’s call, soft panels connect to everything with minimal settings: set, set the necessary addresses, turn it on - that's it ) At first glance, expensive


    Screen to create a meeting in Outlook

    Adult options are networked and equipped with a bunch of valuable features. For example, part of the screens can be navigation (which is especially important in all kinds of places such as congress centers), automation can hook up to the switching of conference rooms and set up equipment in advance, test channels and warm up projectors. This is especially valuable for important events in the same hotels. In the morning everything is tested, a letter arrives: “It is configured according to such a scenario, everything is normal, the next planned incident is the lamp replacement after 2,000 hours of operation (more than a year). The climate control is set up in such a way, the temperature at the beginning of the event is such and such, the light is adjusted for reading from paper. ”

    Why are such systems installed?Usually the decision comes at the moment when someone once again bursts into the meeting room, where an important meeting is taking place. Banks do not like to lose at such a time, and the same office centers prefer order and stability, plus a high utilization of the meeting rooms, because there are not so many of them at all. Even hotels now in the standard for five stars have a clear description of the panel in front of the meeting room, and four-star hotels continue to just try to follow the same direction. Because after the first use, the benefits are obvious. For example, we did such in Korston, Hilton and a number of hotels.

    By the way, technical services of hotels and business centers are also very happy with such systems. The fact is that, in addition to the usual booking tasks, they collect good forecast reports on resource utilization out of the box. This report turned out to be very convenient to slap a financial director on the table with the words: “Here is the exact evidence for you that loading of conversations is already 90% and after 4 months a new one will be needed.” Of course, you can repeat this trick with Outlook uploads, but it will not be very simple.

    Info panels


    The same systems are used in universities, congress centers, various facilities with complex navigation. At universities, for example, individual panels for classrooms (not always) and general panels with a schedule for floors are used. For example, at the Technical University of the UMMC (this is such a special educational institution for advanced training of metallurgists), the entrance panel shows the general schedule, and students know where to go. Of course, these systems are a little more “stuck-working” - you need hosts that will synchronize data and resolve conflicts (if the schedule update is possible from several nodes).

    Control


    Again, if these panels are not "lonely", but on the network, then it is very convenient to display equipment control inside the conference room, for example. In hotels, it comes down to choosing a lighting mode, sound system, and projector. As a rule, there are 5 buttons: 4 typical scenarios and a lock, so that after selecting a scenario without a password, nothing could be changed.

    Shine


    Recently, we have often been asked dynamic lighting systems. These are dimmable lines of lamps that automatically turn off on the sunny side of the room and turn on on the dark. That is, lighting comes to a certain norm, for example, described in the requirement for the workplace. This allows not to use excess light in an already lit room - and significantly extends the life of the equipment.

    By themselves, smoothly dimmable sources are more expensive than conventional ones, therefore it is not always possible to talk about savings. However, they are chosen because of reduced energy consumption.. For some, this is a “green” project, but more often it’s just less power for the building. In general, as soon as the owner of a large building hears that power can be reduced, he immediately rejoices. Because consumption is growing, and connecting a new one is another quest. In general, our partners - manufacturers of energy-saving solutions - give the following numbers: non-watt (that is, saved watt of energy) when dimming is much higher than alternative sources. 4 times it is more economically justified than the use of wind energy, 22 times - solar energy. Of course, plus motion and IR sensors - they can detect a person who is even standing still in the toilet. They are conveniently placed in negotiation rooms so as not to cover empty rooms. Here, in general, there are details about these and other solutions, we use a lot in our office.

    Another important thing is smart curtains. These are the ones that open and close themselves depending on the scenario. There are also special multilayer curtains that help absorption in the winter (less load on heating) or reflect in the summer (less load on ventilation and climate control). But here, however, it is better to design when the meeting room is not yet equipped. Because I’ve seen a couple of times how a reflective curtain met a reflective double-glazed window. A very hot layer of air forms. A curtain usually wins and warms up a double-glazed window until it cracks.

    You can set the schedule of light, taking into account the cycle of movement of the sun for several years ahead. For example, a curtain that reflects begins to drop to the level of shadow as the sun rises. Plus, its controller itself can control climate control.

    In Europe, there are many such implementations in green offices. We made the system on these controllers at the Four Seasons Hotel, but it was the light control there that the second stage was laid down for development. Now switching for regular conference tasks with the possibility of easy expansion of functionality has been done. There are similar systems in Korston, but they are also not fully deployed there (as a rule, the project and controllers are the cheapest, and then comes the investment plan for years). Curtains usually buy last.

    More chips


    There are partitions where glass simply ceases to be transparent due to liquid crystals. They are expensive, but for a number of premium facilities can be very relevant. No less expensive are the partitions, which are transparent in themselves, but can be blocked by the projector or catch its image with the desired contrast in the air. I’ll clarify right away that the payback of such decisions in the Russian Federation is only at the expense of show-offs, 10 or more years (until the cost of energy carriers in our country approaches the European level).

    At some sites, you can enter the chat room only by attaching an RFID access control tag. Not invited to the meeting - just do not go inside.

    For different switching I really love all sorts of switching devices. These are boxes that you can stick into with any device (iPhone, screw, some even read discs): he will be able to pick out all the presentation files and video files there, bring them to the desired format and give them to the screen. It’s damn convenient, as well as “dongles” with the same functionality, but the latter most often work only under PC. But switching devices are universal, and this is very good. They also allow you to display a picture on multiple screens without processors, which generally costs usually in standard switching is very expensive.

    The most pumped glands of this class are not cheap - from 100 to 500 thousand rubles. But they replace a bunch of everything, starting from the switch and the scaler and ending with the video processor with a bunch of "snot" between them. It seems to me that the future lies with these devices (despite the fact that they do not say positively for the growth of the videoconferencing integration market, in order to positively, we are already glad to put them in customer offices).

    And finally. There is a very thin beautiful cable, flat and wide - it’s just perfect to let it go through the glass. It looks like it was a designer strip. This is not a white box on double-sided tape. Here is an example of a solution from AMX.


    See the wire? And he is, you just have to take a closer look

    Here, in fact, are the main office toys that are being asked. If interested, I’ll tell you more about automation. References:

    Also popular now: