Mimo Testing

[Pete]

Will post pics.

Ordered some stuff from MonoPrice for mounting the Mimo in a single or double wall gang box. Here's a quick shopping and test list.

1 - very short stalk mini speaker mounting bracket. Flush to the wall it still comes out some 2.5" and is 2" wide. Not really that nice looking but 1/4 the size of the speaker brackets that I use for the family room. These are made for very small speakers in that you can't really pivot them too much if you have a larger speaker.



2. - A double wall insert (not really a box - easier and smaller footprint.



3. - Wall plate - you can go with double with single jack holes on two inserts or a single with two jack holes. Either should work. I went with a double.



4. - Misc cables and jacks - so cheap that I bought multiples.



5 - A 35' foot active USB extender. (just to see if it works). Monoprice even has longer active USB extenders very reasonably priced.

6 - took apart the bracket for the Mimo Monitor. Its basically a small stalk with a screen holding it the stand. There's a little rubber cap over the screw hole. The stalk / screw assembly will fit nicely in a small hole drilled into a blank. The back of it will have a metal spacer to keep the Mimo monitor in place. This "bracket" assembly will sit less than one inch from the wall plate (more like 1/2") still allowing for room on the mini USB jack. I was looking for a right angle mini jack cable but didn't find any.

Will post more pictures. Meanwhile now testing the Mimo 7" USB next to a 7" VGA/USB touchscreen and a 15" VGA/Serial Planar touchscreen. The VGA screens are much "faster" than the USB Mimo Screen. HS Touch still works fine expecially with the camera views. First want to get all of this working with a direct connect; then later with a VM client connect. Only the Mimo screen will wake up touching the screen. I cannot get the other VGA USB nor VGA Serial to wake up. Touchscreen sensitivity is about the same for all. Where I see the difference is in the screen switching with the Mimo monitor being the slowest and the Planar monitor being the fastest.

[mterry63]

I'd like to go to a setup like this myself with multiple mimo usb screens connected directly to the Homeseer server. I wonder how many could be supported with good response?

Keep us posted on progress.

[Pete]

What I've read and what has been seen are two different numbers. Theoretically Mimo states the maximum amount of USB devices that can hang off one computer versus what folks have tried (2-4 Mimo Monitors). Have a look on the MP3Car dot com forums. It is kind of starting to take off a bit for automotive carpc applications with other monitor vendors jumping on the USB to Monitor bandwagon. One of the MP3 staff even got a wireless USB setup going and there's a video of the demo on a 10" screen. Its much easier to run one USB cable a few feet in a car versus running three cables for one monitor in a car. For me it was easier to tap into the existing GPS (OEM) RGB monitor and map the radio knobs than it was to insert a touch screen. If it was only one cable though it would have been much easier.

It would be a bit difficult to run multiple HSTouch sessions off of one instance of OS but you can run multiple HS Touch instances from multiple VM client sessions on a physical box that has HS running in one VM client instance.

I'm getting decent responses with one Mimo monitor but its still slower than a directly connected VGA monitor. I can see some graphic lines (will take pictures) similiar to what you would see when you change your resolution on a monitor or when you slow down the hardware acceleration. This is starting to change though with the migration over to USB 3.0 becoming a new standard. I've read too that Mimo monitors will have a "power plug" in the near future (other USB monitor vendors are already doing this).

[mterry63]

Since the Android client has been released I'm torn between an Android tablet or the Mimo, but I'm thinking the Mimo still may have the upper hand as long as the performance is good.

Now that there are 5? different HSTouch client platforms I suspect that they are all in different degrees of polish/bug fixes. The Ipod/pad client may be the most finished since it's gotten the lions share of attention in the last 6 months but the Android client may catch up since it's the 'client de jour'.

Unfortunately the Ipad hardware/software solution is a little more expensive than I want to spring for, so it's a race between Android hardware/software and PC hardware/software. The Mimo may currently have the edge.

At least it's most likely to have the same experience on the designer and the client.

[macromark]

We tested the Mimo with a handful of USB extenders and eventually gave up. We couldn't get the unit to reconnect reliably after a disconnection. Sometimes it would reconnect but the touch feature wouldn't work; other times, it wouldn't connect at all. The extender software is mostly to blame for this; not the unit itself.

[mterry63]

Anyone else seen this kind of behavior? That would certainly be a problem in deployment, they would need to be rock-solid in operation or WAF would plummet.

[Pete]

I tried with a plan old USB 1.0 Cat5E cable. It worked up to about 20 feet. I purchased an active 2.0 USB 32 foot extender and will give it a try today.

My testing has been to create a touch Icon to put the monitor to sleep and then touching it anywhere on the screen to wake it up. Right now only testing connected to one PC and not with VM at this time. It does sleep / wake up fine. If I reboot the computer the screen does come back.

[Pete]

It didn't work with the 32 foot active 2.0 USB extension.

I was going to give two of these a try.

Mark, should I continue?

[newstuart]

[macromark]

Anyone else seen this kind of behavior? That would certainly be a problem in deployment, they would need to be rock-solid in operation or WAF would plummet.

The extenders we tried were not repeater cables (which should work fine in theory) but were ethernet to USB and WiFi to USB. Those were the ones we had trouble with.

FYI

[Pete]

Thanks Stuart. I'm trying with 10 M active USB cables. (bought a couple hubs to try also). The first test was with one 10 M cable and the second Mimo USB cable plugged into an Ipod 5V charger. That's what didn't work. I ordered a second 10 M active USB cable to see if the pair (without a hub) will work first. (the cables are around $10 USD each at MonoPrice). Trying something different this year as I slowly migrate all of the rest of the CRT TV's / added LCDs to the house relating to of a base "infrastructure"; not cutting any more holes in drywall (plasterboard). I had to redo my office LCD TV (mounted near the ceiling) going from a 100mm VESA mounting plate to a 200mm Vesa mounting plate. I went to a 27" versus the older 19" LCD; meanwhile added HDMI/VGA/Cat5 to the wall plate behind the set. Kind of a similiar effort with TS's now standardizing if possible with means such that I can replace them easier. (its a WAF thing). Master bedroom is a whole different "thing" as my wife has been "commenting" on all of the various LED's on one side of the room as I keep discretely adding more "stuff" to the MM center.

I noticed you mounted your TS appears (a guess) to be about 1 M from the floor. Here in the home I have all my electric switches at about almost 1 foot higher than the doorknobs and historically mounted the TS's a couple of inches above the height of the light switches. Are you having to peer down to the touch screen to run events? In FL the contractor's electrician mounted all of the light switches at about 1 M high which he mentioned that being some sort of trademark for his work. (I personally would have preferred the light switches be at about 48" height from the floor - and didn't say anything or pay attention when it was happening).

Thanks Mark for the info. It appears that the WiFi to USB Mimo testing was proven to work by the folks at MP3Car dot com earlier this year stating it was a viable option but "not good enough" for automotive carpc type scenarios as I've not seen really any follow up there anymore. Just recently purchased a Lantronix ethernet to USB box (and have a DigiUSB anywhere box) to test the W2C box via an ethernet connection and won't even attempt to try a Mimo monitor connection with it.

[newstuart]

I have actually enlarged what was previously the hole for the light switch as the lights are controlled via hs touch now so it was not needed.

I have not had any viewing problems with it at the hight it is as the viewing angle seems quite wide on these.

[Pete]

Thanks Stuart.

Are you putting the Mimo TS computer to sleep or shutting it off?

One of my "tests" have been related to putting it to sleep via one HSTouch icon and then waking it up by touching the screen. It takes a few seconds and comes back right almost every time unless I put it to sleep and unplug the power supply.

[newstuart]

I have the power options on the pc it is connected to (My homeseer server) set to turn off the monitor if no activity for 1 minute and it wakes up instantly as soon as you tap the screen.

I have now set it to display the time only as the front screen with the idea of leaving it on 24/7 as a sort of allarm clock but I am undecided

[Pete]

I really need to just install the Mimo on a wall to actively test it in "vivo" similiar to what you are doing.

I like the clock screen.

I keep making changes to the screens while its sitting on the workbench.

For the time being I have mine connected to a mITX dual core (a bit over kill for one touchscreen) very small footprint PC (about 18 CM square).

I want to see if it'll work with the two active USB wires connected to it. With this setup will do a run to the attic with the USB cables and then down back to the second floor home "Office" closet. Most likely will do a combo USB/Network wall plate such that I can switch computers should the need arise.