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Audience Response System Technologies
A Discussion of Radio versus
Infrared Devices and Various Popular Brands.
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Audience Response System Technologies
- A Discussion of Radio versus
Infrared Devices and Various Popular Brands.
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| Technologies: Radio versus Infrared |
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| Step 3: Decide on a Hardware Platform |
| There are two primary technologies
for wireless voting. They are; infrared and radio. This
nomenclature refers to
the methodology for data communications between a base station
and its keypads. Infrared is a lower cost technology.
Today, it is considerably more reliable than earlier versions. Its limitations are narrow bandwidth, and
distance. Sending a single digit vote over a relatively short distance
is what it is designed for, and it does this well. |
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| If your audience is no more than about
50
people, and if your software need does not include multi-digit voting,
infrared deserves strong consideration. A complete system of
50
keypads, a base station, software, and case can be as much as
25% less than the price of a standard radio system. That
makes it a rather attractive alternative. |
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| Infrared technology in Audience Response has
been around for a few years, but buyer beware of overstatements
by some notorious vendors in the industry. In our view,
infrared is just not suitable when the distance between a keypad
and a base station in more than about 50 feet. In a
typical room, that means a maximum of about 50 people.
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| If your need exceeds infrared limitations,
you'll need a radio technology product. Before looking at
a specific brand, you should first decide between single-digit
voting and multi-digit voting. Consider your
organization's requirements over the next three to four years.
You will pay a premium for multi-digit capability, but it is the
future of the industry. Three major multi-digit products emerged
during 2003. As a result, most of the software currently
available is in its first generation. |
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| Multi-digit voting allows you to do things that
could not be done before with most wireless audience response
systems. For example, with single digit
voting if you ask everyone to enter their age, you must offer the
choices in a range such as: a) Less than 18 b) 18 to 25
c) 26 to 35, and so on. The system might then show that
23% of the audience is in the range of 26 to 35. But, they
could all be 26, or all 35, or anywhere between.
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| The same question using multi-digit voting
allows each person to enter their two-digit age. Since the
captured data is extremely granular, you can report the exact
number of people for each year of age on a scale of 1 to 99 for
example. In this way, the mean average for the group is a
precise measurement, rather than being an average of ranges.
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| A few other examples of multi-digit voting are:
enter all of the choices that apply, rank order (prioritize)
dozens of items or actions, enter a company location number,
which of these 200 cities are you from, what percent of a budget
would you allocate to this expense, what is your annual salary,
vote for multiple candidates to fill board seats, and game shows
that allow people to wager the number points entered.
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| If these types of questions are important to
the work that you'll be doing, then your choice should be
a multi-digit capable hardware platform.
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| Step 4: Decide on a Brand and Then a
Dealer |
| Once you've decided on a platform, next is to
decide on a brand. For infrared systems in North America,
there are two very reliable systems: the PRS®
system, and the all new ResponseCard.®
The latter is our favorite because the keypads are about the
size of a credit card. |
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| For radio based systems in North America, you
should purchase a
Fleetwood manufactured system. Their standard
Reply® product has dominated the single-digit world since the early
1990s. Their Reply IQ®
system builds on that success,
and is a multi-digit product that will carry them well into the
future. And, to bridge any gap between infrared and
radio, Fleetwood now offers a low cost radio system called Reply EZ®.
In Europe, there are at least three major manufacturers,
including Fleetwood. Your choice may be based more on
which country you are in. |
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| Fleetwood products are also sold under private
labels such as OptionFinder®, and RSVP®. As for selecting a
dealer, it's best to find the right software and define
all the components that you need. Then, buy as many
components as possible as a single package, from a single,
reputable Audience Response Systems dealer.
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Discussion of
Audience Response Software -> |
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