The hot AV product this year for education seems to be wireless presentation gateways. At this week’s Whitlock Convergence show in Durham we got to take a look at several of these devices including WOW Vision’s Collab8 collaboration device. At first glance the Collab8 looked similar to the wireless presentation products Crestron and Teq AVIT are offering, but it offers a lot more than just wireless content presentation. The Collab8 is a collaboration device. It supports connections from wired and wireless participants with the option of inputing a document camera, video conferencing codec or any other HDMI outputting device. The Collab8 also supports interactive touch displays, and has built-in cloud storage, whiteboard software, and support for 3rd party apps like WebEx, Skype, and the Microsoft Office suite.
I was impressed with all the thought that went into designing this device. It is great to see devices like this and the Christie Brio which are taking wireless presentation gateways one step further. Overall, the functionality may be a bit more than you may need if you are just simply looking for wireless presentation gateway. However, if you are looking for a collaboration device this could be a good fit for your space.
