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When the stars align

Earlier this year our old meeting room reservation displays started to show their age. After the third one stopped working we made the decision to get new ones. It's not that we couldn't have gotten new one earlier, but one of our core values is sustainability so we tend to try to use the technology as long as it remains usable instead of replacing it too often with the latest and greatest tech.

As a person responsible of all things technical I was tasked to search for replacements for those. The old screens were basically clarified android tablets with their power hungry always on screens (except during out of office hours) I wanted to have something more "green". The e-ink screens are the most efficient ways to display visual information since paper so the choice was obvious.

After some research on available markets I found a perfect solution: screens that were able to clearly display the status of the room and also provide some additional information like upcoming bookings, while lasting for a year on a single charge of their tiny batteries.

The screens already arrived a couple of weeks ago, but I only had time to start the setup of them last week. I immediately encountered a problem as I wasn't able to connect to them from the management software on my phone. I didn't have too much time to investigate the problem back then and after a few tries I gave up, deciding to get back to it later when I had better time.

Today I got back to the office and was prepared to spend substantial amount of time to investigate the issue and try to get the setup done. But to my surprise the connection worked straight away on my first try. Nothing should have changed since last week, but what seemed impossible just a week ago just worked today. Sometimes technology can act just like magic.