[REQUEST] Which solution to propose

[tek9]

Hi all.
I just got a call from a customer wanting me to advise them on the best solution for their situation.
He's opening a store selling custom suits, shirts etc. He has a website that allows the customer to custom design their suit and to see it in 3D as he goes through the process. He wants to setup 10-12 stations in the store with large 60" screens for the customers to use this website within the store.
So the client wants to know what would be the best option for him hardware-wise. Should he get a centralized system and have all those screens/stations hook into that system, or should he just get individual systems for each screen and run each one separately.
I advised him that since there is no real work being done on the system itself, since it's all web-based, he should get a tiny or micro PC and connect each one individually to each screen. All he really needs is a basic, reliable Tiny/Micro PC and a fast, reliable Internet connection for that. I don't think setting up a Terminal Server for this situation is a good fit.
My question for you guys is: I usually don't do this type of work so I'm not familiar with all the options out there, and I also never setup a terminal server and such. Would you have recommended a different option? Is there anything out there that would work better in this situation?
Thanks in advance.

 

[fencepost]

I think you and your customer need to define a little more exactly what's being done on these and get a guinea pig system to try it on first, possibly with a smaller screen. I think you're talking about having these run as kiosks, but you should also be looking at making sure your local systems can adequately drive 4k video.

My immediate thought is that your customer may be looking too far down the road - if he doesn't already have the software for those in-store systems he's going to need to get that to a stable point first, and jumping directly to 10-12 ordering stations that will probably cost at least $2000 each seems ambitious. Heck, how many men's suit stores have 10-12 individuals shopping in them at one time?

You're also probably going to end up with either 65" or 55" based on what I in the B&H Photo Commercial Monitors section, just because there are a lot more options in those sizes.

 

[tek9]

According to the customer the website is already up and running. All he needs really is to give the customers the ability to interact with that website from within the store with a large format display. The 60" figure wasn't set in stone, it's more like a range, if you'd like.
I though that any computer with a DisplayPort connection should be able to drive a 4K monitor. I was thinking along the lines of a Dell Optiplex Micro 3050 or a Lenovo ThinkCentre Tiny m710q or similar, with a small SSD.
According to him it's going to be a large store, but I don't really know exact details.

 

[Markverhyden]

I think you need to do a meet and greet on location to get the feel of the site. And I agree with @fencepost, doubtful they'll have anything close to 10 customers at once. I like to shop at Brooks Brothers and even during peak season's there are rarely more than 2-3 at a time looking at suits.

And by 3D do you mean they will have 3D glasses to do this? Remember that there are also 3D headsets out there.

 

[fencepost]

Headed back out the door, but having the website up and running for users to order is a very different thing than having large ordering kiosks in-store. If the kiosks don't offer anything more than the website does, why go to the expense of a storefront?

Speccing for 10-12 systems in a brand-new storefront that's not in a heavy shopping district in NYC strikes me as as either a manic phase or someone who has an investor and is trying to get as much possible at once in the hopes that it'll be needed (aka, "high burn rate").

 

[tek9]

I'm not entirely certain regarding the 3D part but I think it's just that you can see a mockup model of what the suit looks like as you're customizing it, i.e. you first choose the fabric design, then the cut, then the buttons, buttonholes etc. etc. I don't think it's really 3-D the way we look at it.
The reason he has a storefront is so customers can come in and feel the fabrics and see the choices up close. I think he sells more than just custom suits, so there's that as well. He also needs to have customer in the store so they can put them through the 3-D scanning machine to get their exact measurements.
I agree with the 10-12 stations being overkill. It's possible he wants to have the stations spread out through-out the store so they don't have to go far to get to a station to see the custom suit mockup.

 

[tek9]

It's not a new client. He's been a customer for years. He has a few locations (for a different business) in two towns, and currently runs a custom suit shop in addition to the other businesses. Looks like he wants to either expand the current suit shop or add an additional location.
Do you think a Smart TV would work better than a PC hooked up to a (regular) TV, if it's really just a webpage he's going for? This was one of the options I was considering.

 

[nlinecomputers]

You also have to consider data (PCI?) on systems that foolish people can walk away from. I really can't see the in store system functioning the same way as in the home.

 

[tek9]

I think the webpage is only for visualizing what the suit would look like as a finished product. I don't think you can actually order anything online, since they need to put you through that 3-D scanner to get your measurements. So that would take care of the PCI issue.
I'll suggest to him to test out the SmartTv route and take it from there, I guess.
Thanks.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

How about this?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01A...=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=stick+pc

At work, we have different floors and different divisions within our organization. The guy there went out and bought signage type units running some flavor of Linux I'm guessing. Anyway, ever so idea they lock up, I think 3 or 4 out of 4 have had to go back for warranty repairs. I believe they paid 1200 each or so for them.

To make a long story short, another area was using an Apple TV to try to display files from a MacBook and it kept losing connection. We'd bought one of these to play with for the IT department, and going it actually worked ok. The cheap one we had was like an Intel atom quad, 2gb of ram, and 32gb of storage.

The good news was though it came with windows 10 home edition on it I think, and it essentially turns a TV screen into a desktop PC. It's not the fastest experience, but it's enough to do digital signage or penally navigate a web site. It's got a couple of USB ports, I think one was USB 2.0 and a 3.0. If memory serves, ours also had an SD card slot. So you could hook a wireless mouse and keyboard to it. Maybe this.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B014...QL65&keywords=wireless+keyboard+with+touchpad

That was you have a system that is hidden behind your screen, and not a large investment. Like I told our guy at work who ordered the other systems I was talking about, at say 100 each, even if you buy a new one each year, they are basically a throwaway price. Incidentally he bought one to have as a backup when one of his units goes down.

 

[tek9]

I installed one of those compute sticks at a client who needed it to play youtube videos in his store. Had nothing but problems. Always freezing up and spacing out. It never worked consistently. In the end I just got rid of it and copied some videos onto a USB stick and stuck that into his TV. Never had an issue after that.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

I could see that because of always playing videos, it would generati extra heat etc. I would hope that a website would not be overly taxing. But I've only played with them a little.

 

[fencepost]

Don't cheap out with a compute stick. If you need to keep the price down, go with a refurbed Thinkcentre Tiny or the like - you can get a 4th generation i5 with 4-8GB and either a 128-256 SSD or 500GB HD for anywhere from $200-325. That's small enough to mount easily, VESA brackets and the like are easily available for them, you can even set them up to PXE boot instead (scheduled boot, PXE boot Linux + Chromium, etc.).