Smart Board Unifi 680i in the house!

Posted by: rkassissieh
February162007

We have finally received the Smart Board 680i unit that we ordered back in August! Smart had a bunch of problems getting this product to market for some reason. I feel fortunate that we bought only one, since the troubles they experienced may spell further difficulties for us down the road. However, we are equally happy to have one of these units. The classroom has a vaulted ceiling, making the installation of a ceiling-mounted unit next to impossible. Also, the all-in-one unit is a lot less trouble to install than separate projector, audio speakers, amplifier, and Smart Board. If the unit proves reliable and easy to use, we will look forward to installing it in other locations where the ceiling structure does not allow a vertical mount.

The device itself is something of a marvel. Smart appears to have split up the projector components into two parts. The lens and lamp reside in a tiny enclosure over three feet off the wall, and the projector inputs are all back on the wall!

Comments

Posted by arvind s grover on February 18 - 07:04:11

We just got 3 of these. Slowly getting them up and running. The main reason we got them is we wanted short-throw projectors so the teacher's shadow wasn't constantly covering the board. But, the projector arm sticks out a lot further than I thought it would. That means there is still going to be some shadow. Less than if you had the projector in the back of the room, but still. There are some mounts for super-short throw projectors, but they are pricey. Good luck with yours...

Posted by rkassissieh on March 08 - 11:17:27

Update: our Unifi projector died after two weeks - no status lights at all on the projector base. It appears that Smart will send a temporary replacement while ours is in for service. I'm disappointed that it broke so quickly, but at least the board is still usable without the projector. It just operates as a conventional board at this point.

Posted by rkassissieh on June 18 - 12:14:43

Another update: Smart tech support was moving very slowly to help us with our dead projector, but then a product manager read this blog post and arranged to send us a replacement unit. The replacement has worked flawlessly since then!

Posted by Pat on October 12 - 06:12:26

I just got three of the 680i smart board units. All three freeze at least once during the day and need restarted. One of them can't be hooked up through the unifi projector. The green light on the board just blinks. The board does work when hooked directly to the PC, but that diables all of the unifi features. Very disappointing product. Support from smarttech has been even more disappointing.

Posted by Howard on November 26 - 05:11:58

We also have 2 of these 680i's. We have nothing but problems so far. They both with freeze up, and the ink cannot be erased with out restarting. Have tried new cables, upgrade the firmware, as well as replacing the Dell Desktop with a new HP. We cannot find a solution.

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