eBeam Interactive Whiteboard « Sandbox Syburgh

While the Luidia eBeam interactive whiteboard system certainly works, its value and usefulness is the subject of some debate. I have found that it does work as advertised, but the incremental difficulty of setting it up and using it prevents it from being used often.It does make an impression on people the first time they see it in action, and is fun to demo.

Example Whiteboard Capture


Photo	Result (PDF)

eBeam Complete Product

It costs $700-1,200 and appears to be targeted at schools. The Bluetooth versions cost several hundred dollars more than USB-only, which doesn’t seem commensurate with the incremental value. Connecting the receiver using USB is much more reliable than the Bluetooth connection. That said, I have the USB+Bluetooth version.

The package contains lots of stuff, but the carrying case to store it all is $49.95 extra. For the price, I would have expected it to be included.

The marker sleeves and eraser collectively use 10 CR2032 button cell batteries, which aren’t often found in office supply cabinets. The stylus for eBeam Interact uses a single AA battery. As the system is portable, it’s probably a good idea to pack extra batteries with the markers.

Other than mine I have never seen another eBeam device (or Mimio, its main competitor) in a classroom or conference room, despite both being on the market for over 5 years.

The eBeam product (eBeam complete) offers two key functions, using the System3 receiver and accessories:

Transcribe the contents of a whiteboard using the eBeam Capture application, sold separately as eBeam whiteboard
Navigate the PC desktop projected against a whiteboard with a marker-like stylus using the eBeam Interact application, sold separately as eBeam projection. The eBeam Interactive stylus pretends to be a mouse that can be used to point and click through Windows

eBeam System3 Receiver

Positioning the Receiver

The receiver is “L” shaped, about 6 in. (15 cm) square and needs to be placed in one of the corners of the whiteboard

Can use any whiteboard, up to 8 x 5 ft (2.5 x 1.5 m) with the suction cup bracket. The suction cups are strong and the receiver is very light, so there does not seem to be a major risk of it falling off the whiteboard
On porcelain/steel whiteboards (the expensive kind usually installed in a corporate environment) the magnetic bracket (included) makes it easier to attach/remove the receiver
It is best to locate the receiver in one of the upper corners as it will quickly become covered with dust from the markers if it is at the bottom of the board. The dust does not seem to reduce receiver’s accuracy or range
The writer’s body should not come between the marker and receiver , so the receiver should be on the opposite side from the writing hand for best results (i.e. a right handed writer should put the receiver on the left side). This may sound like a big deal, but in practice it’s not significant limitation unless the writer leans on the whiteboard

Powering the Receiver

The receiver draws power from the USB port
Included cable is very long and interchangeable with any other mini-USB cable (e.g. Blackberry cable)
Transformer (included) appears to be the same as a Blackberry transformer (same international plugs), and the receiver can be powered with a Blackberry transformer when using Bluetooth. It is auto-switching an accepts 100-240v AC power

Connecting the Receiver via Bluetooth

As with most Bluetooth peripherals, configuration is complex and fragile. This will probably frustrate non-technical users, especially if they are aware of the premium price paid for the wireless functionality.

The included USB Bluetooth dongle is a nice touch (it’s an IOGear GBU221), and it can be made to work with the standard Bluetooth driver in Windows XP SP2. If you plan to use encryption for the Bluetooth connection, you will want to use the Windows driver instead of the Widcomm driver. While the Widcomm driver is included on a CDROM in the box, it does not store the Bluetooth encryption passkey and will prompt the user to enter it by hand each time the eBeam receiver is powered on (as of 2007-06-08).

To enable Windows XP SP2 to find the GBU221 dongle, modify %WINDIR%infbth.inf before plugging in the dongle:

Find this section in the file:


[Broadcom.NT.5.1]
Blutonium BCM2035 Bluetooth 2.4 GHz Single Chip Transceiver= BthUsb, USBVID_0A5C&PID_200A
BCM2033 Bluetooth 2.4 GHz Single Chip Transceiver= BthUsb, USBVID_0A5C&PID_200F

Add this line below it:


BCM2045A Bluetooth 2.4 GHz Single Chip Transceiver= BthUsb, USBVID_0a5c&PID_2101

Read this discussion for more information.

Calibration

Calibration is very simple: tell the software which corner of the whiteboard contains the receiver (e.g. NW, NE, SE, or SW) and touch the two corners farthest from the receiver (top corner first, then bottom). The PC beeps when each corner is touched so you don’t have to click through the wizard using the mouse
Calibration settings appear to be stored on the PC, not the receiver. If the receiver is moved between multiple PCs, each can have different calibration settings for the same receiver (combined with the magnetic mounting bracket, this makes it easy to move between different conference rooms with built-in PCs)
The included “shortcut strip” is a reusable plastic sticker that enables the writer to add pages to their whiteboard file or print the current file by touching the sticker with one of the markers. It is calibrated by touching two of its corners after sticking anywhere on the whiteboard. It works well and makes the system pretty easy for non-technical writers to use
Calibration is only necessary when the receiver is moved. Because the settings are stored on the connected PC they are retained when the receiver is powered off

Accuracy

Accuracy of recorded marker strokes is excellent and similiar to a good digitalizer tablet
Issues arise if objects interfere with the marker’s line of sight to the receiver. On whiteboards with a marker tray on the bottom the eBeam eraser or bottles of cleaning solvent in the tray can interfere with the eBeam receiver’s line of sight. Be sure the whiteboard is unobstructed, and everything will work fine
Real markers allow the writer to vary the width of lines, whereas eBeam is 2D. The line width and color for each marker sleeve can be configured in the Capture application, but it is always uniform. In practice this makes most user’s writing look more clear, but may frustrate whiteboard artists
The “smoothing” feature can straighten/simplify strokes, which also reduces the saved file size. I find this feature annoying and keep it disabled

Marker Sleeves

Marker sleeves accept generic Expo and Sanford dry erase markers
Sleeves make a soft buzzing noise when transmitting. This positive feedback makes it obvious to the writer if they “miss” a stroke by not applying enough pressure (e.g. when dotting “i” and “j” or crossing “t”)
Because the sleeves are pressure actuated, users will often apply too much pressure and wear out the markers more quickly than usual. The pressure required is very small, so wear is not a major issue for the experienced writer
Marker color is assigned by sleeve. Markers do not need to actually need to mark the whiteboard to transmit, so dry markers work just as well as fresh
Not sure how long the batteries will last, but they’ve been OK for a month so far

Eraser

The eBeam eraser is pressure sensitive like the marker sleeves, but erases a bit more on the whiteboard than in the Capture application
Rather than erasing a full board with the eBeam eraser, it is often faster to start a new page in the Capture application and use a normal eraser to clear the whiteboard. If the touch strip is in use, this is extra convenient
It is easy to leave the accidentally eraser “on” and wear out the batteries, best to store it upside down

eBeam Capture application

Can clone whiteboard pages to “continue” whiteboards– this works well when erasing only part of the whiteboard to continue a list/analysis/etc.
In my experience, each full whiteboard page adds ~100 KB when saved as a file, can be smaller if “smoothing” of strokes is enabled
All marker strokes have round (semi-circular) ends (only noticable when zoomed in or using thick line width). Stokes that are “broken” using the eraser also have rounded ends
Marker strokes are recorded in sequence, and can be “played back” like a movie. It’s kind of interesting to watch, but I haven’t found a use for this feature

Meetings

Meeting partipants can add content to the communal set of whiteboard pages if allowed by the meeting host. This obviously does not update the physical whiteboard, which limits the value of having multiple contributors
Participants can flip through whiteboard pages independently of the user hosting the meeting. The host can force the participants to “synchronize”, which means they can only view the page the meeting host sees. This functionality probably more valuable in a classroom environment
Both Internet and locally hosted meetings are high-latency. I have had better luck sharing the screen on the host PC using Netmeeting

Luidia Hosted Meetings

The public Internet-based service is free (for now), and the software can be purchased as eBeam server for internal use. I have not used the internal server product
Participants need only a web browser and Internet access to use the service, which can be made to work through HTTP proxy servers. Complex local proxy servers can cause issues (e.g. “automatic” proxy configurations)
Participants can use either the eBeam Capture software installed on their PC or a Java based viewer
Latency is very high for meeting participants (~1000 ms), which can be disruptive when communicating with participants by telephone

Locally Hosted Meetings

Only a user with an eBeam device connected to their PC (USB or Bluetooth) may host a meeting. This is a an artificial limitation that can be removed for licensees of the Meeting Server (so it seems, can’t confirm)
Latency is not much better than meetings hosted over the Internet (several hundred ms) but still not as responsive as Netmeeting (which is itself slower than VNC or RDP)

eBeam Interact application

“Interact” supposed to work by projecting the PC display on a whiteboard, but I haven’t had a chance to try this out.

I can confirm that eBeam does not work when the receiver is taped to a plasma display. At most of our offices we have plasma screens and projectors with soft screens that drop from the ceiling in each conference room, neither of which work with eBeam.

Sandbox Syburgh