F5 Technologies are a cutting edge technology company who develop network hardware and software for the “Application Network”. With F5 solutions in place, businesses gain strategic points of control wherever information is exchanged, from client devices and the network to application servers, data storage, and everything in between. ITSL were engaged by F5 Technologies to design and install a room control system for their two main technology centre board rooms. These rooms are where prospective customers are taken to have technical presales discussions about the latest products, so they had to be impressive, easy to use and functional.

As well as meeting rooms, the reception area needed to have some bold digital signage that had to be easy to use and update, full HD, and most of all, large. If the screen had to be big, the audio needed to match. The reception space was multifunctional and would be used as a presentation space and social area too. Meeting Rooms

ITSL designed and installed a presentation system into each room that would allow either presentation from a laptop plugged into a variety of points in the room, from a lectern or from a resident PC. High resolution, LAN controlled Hitachi projectors were chosen for their ease of control, high resolution and long lamp life. Motorised projector screens were installed as well as multi channel lighting control and a ceiling speaker audio system.

Each room was controllable via an iPad situated on the table or an inexpensive button panel on the wall. The room could be turned on or off with the touch of a button without the need for multiple complicated remote controls.

The lighting was totally adjustable from the iPad and a dedicated light switch near the door, although scenes were setup for specific modes such as presentation, video and lecture. An occupancy sensor was installed in each room that enabled the system to turn on the lights when the room was entered and to shut the room down if no activity was detected for 30 minutes. The lights, projector and audio would be switched off and the projector screen would retract back into the ceiling. As well as reducing the carbon footprint of the space it saved lamp hours on the projector resulting in a lower TCO in its lifetime.

Video Wall

A 2 x 2 video wall was installed in reception behind the coffee bar to present a 92” image as you emerge from the lifts onto the floor. ITSL used 4 Samsung video wall panels with ultra thin bezels for the task, controlled via the LAN and fed by a OneLan digital signage unit. Utilising a specialised video wall controller, the already very thin bezels were corrected for making the image site seamlessly behind, as if looking through a window.

The video wall had to be impressive, as did the audio. The constraints imposed by a very expensive bamboo ceiling meant that traditional speaker systems would not be used, and there was no space at floor level to install anything. ITSL opted to use a KEF speaker system with miniature speakers and a sub unit that has ported bass tubes that could emerge through very small openings, as if they were down lights.

The video wall was also controllable via a hardware button panel and iPad allowing it to be switched on or off, adjust the volume or swap the source away form the OneLan signage onto to a laptop for presentation purposes.

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