• Features

• 27/11/2015

Russell Harding, Owner of Icon Connect, reviews AMX’s MVP500I, the newest addition to its line of wireless intercom enabled products. It’s also a touch panel..


What we think about it

There are a number of different reasons we might judge a touch panel to be good, and they come from different directions. A quick in-house survey revealed the following results.

The Engineer’s view, “well it’s got VOIP, cool, that makes life easy for integration and coupled with the SIPS and the digital intercom facility, this pushes the boundaries for speech integration from all and every angle. It also looks like that communicator from series three of Star Trek where the…..”

The system developer’s view, “A small package with an 800 x 480 resolution at 180 dpi with wireless capabilities, and high speed processing and yet it still gives you eight hours on standby is something that you can’t ignore. The higher speed processing means its online time is lower and therefore stretches the battery life way above what we are playing with now. It’s no longer acceptable for today’s units to spend their lives in docking stations.”

Salesman’s view: “Looks like an iPod. It’s the only docking station I have ever seen that works well. Clients will love it. Will sell loads of these, what is it again?”

The client’s view

This is where the joviality stops because this is what puts the food on the table for all of us. If the product just doesn’t get the juices flowing from the ONLY thing the client is interested in then you are nowhere. “First impressions” is an old quote but so important. We are moving into a different era now, with touch screens appearing everywhere from fridges to phones. Expectations are now higher than ever.

In phase 1, instantly you can see the body language warm, they view it as something familiar, they really want to take it off you and play with it. They feel the weight, flipping it back and forth and appreciating the lacquer finish. Small nods of the head follow. Next they play with the GUI and see the easy to use interface.
Now the screen has been on for a while they can see the percentage of screen that is non-functioning, “not much use to me, pointless plastic”. Frowning follows, then dialogue about how their touch phone has about a 5mm surround, not 50mm. Why couldn’t AMX…

Almost every client we have tried it on has done the same, and I’m sorry but those are the guys that count to me. In saying that, with many panels on the table to choose from in the demo, it’s always the one that you have to remember to claw back from their hands before you go.

My view

AMX, a great try and one to feel good about. Some of your previous efforts needed some style to jazz them up. Screen size isn’t large enough but the panel is exactly the right size. The weight is great. The specification is spot on for a WiFi panel. IR options are available, and the guy that designed the dock is a godlike genius.
So my list of improvements: Same styling, same size, larger screen, two-way Zigbee option.