Sometimes, innovation born out of necessity from one industry finds its way into another industry. Take, for example, the birth of Tang (the orange powdered drink) and Velcro. Both of these innovative products hit the market in the 70’s, but did you know that they were invented out of necessity for the NASA space program? Tang eventually morphed into other powdered drink mixes, but Velcro, as a product, is still going strong 40 years later.

While eFlex, ASI’s paperless, wireless, eco-friendly desktop digital signage solution, did not come from outer space, it was born out of need for another industry –the need to manage products and pricing for huge, big-box retail shopping centers. Overseas in the Asian marketplace, retail managers were increasingly running into problems of updating product pricing each day or each week. Furthermore, as the marketplace expanded to include the need to serve a multi-lingual consumer base, the task of updating product names was just too much to handle. That’s when someone said “we need an economical way to update all the priceing and product labels at one time by one person instantly.”

Well, guess what? They did it. Using a small liquid-crystal display (think Casio digital watch faces), a tiny battery, and a very simple circuit board with an antenna, they figured out a way to send a wireless signal that instantly changed the message on the display.

Wireless Digital Signage Solution for Hotdesking Environments is Born out of Necessity

The newest architectural signage innovation for hotdesking and multi-function departments in the marketplace today is eFlex — a paperless, wireless, eco-friendly solution from ASI. With eFlex, facility managers and department managers can update and display text information, logos and graphics for room ID’s and desktop ID’s from a single computer. Updates happen remotely and wirelessly, and eFlex can link to various sources – from simple spreadsheets via calendar systems like Outlook through to sophisticated facility management systems. And, eFlex is powered by a self-contained battery that is only activated when the information changes, which allows for a battery lifespan of at least 5 years or 10,000 updates. eFlex technology connects with the system through a wireless communicator in the building. All information that can be sent out from the facility management system (names, bookings, rooms etc.) is displayed on the signs automatically.

For more information on eFlex, including images and product information, click here.