Hi all,
Has anyone used a ‘full’ windows 8 tablet with Ignition?
I am looking to buy a Dell Latitude 10 tablet with a atom processor and I am wondering if it will be good enough as a client.
Anyone?
I’m also interested in that.
This one is also looking good:
http://www.amazon.com/Acer-Iconia-W700P-6821-11-6-Inch-Windows/dp/B009US2FLK
I’m interested in this as well. We’re thinking about using a couple Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2s running a client for some data entry and monitoring operations in the plant. I do like the looks of that Acer, though.
I will order a Dell Latitude 10 tablet to see how it goes.
So you’ll hear from me soon…
Today I’ve got a brand new Acer Iconia W700 tablet. (http://www.aceronline.es/shop/acer-iconia-tab-w700p-64gb-w8-pro-ntl0reb002-p-5073.html)
I was not at work today, so I did some quick tests from home and I must say, I’m very satisfied.
It has Win8 pro 64bit, Intel i3, 4 GB ram, 64 GB ssd (but you get only around 40 GB space because of the 64bit OS), full HD display (1920x1080), one USB 3.0, stylus, Bluetooth keyboard,…
I just installed latest java run time and Acrobat reader.
Then I VPN to my work network and run the Ignition test project (it includes some live web camera feeds, alarm history, opening a PDF help, few tags from Siemens PLC,…) that I have on our server and every thing was running smoothly. Despite that our internet upload speed at work is just 150 kB/s, I could see live camera feeds very good. For example I have two live cameras in one window in Ignition and on this tablet both feeds were smooth.
I had some problems with navigation between screens in Ignition (I use tree view for changing windows), but that’s because test project is written for PC and mouse, not touch screen.
I even installed Siemens WinCC Flexible 2008 SP3 runtime software and run one project, which is written for Siemens MultiPanel 377 key 12" and it was running quicker than on the real panel. Again, there was no support for touch screen (just function keys), but that project was also written with no touch screen in mind.
I must say, this tablet is very good. The specs and the price (I just borrow this tablet for now for testing, but if we decided to buy it, we can get it for 649€, without tax) is very good. In the specs, the battery life is around 9 hours, but that remains to be tested…
That’s for now, I’ll report in few days.
that looks and sounds amazing!
OK, I have done some more tests with our Acer Iconia W700P tablet.
It turns out, that in Win8 the touch behaviour is somehow different, than in Win7. When I made a button on the screen (in Ignition) to set a tag in PLC as long as I press the button (for example for running a motor or conveyor as long as the button is pressed), it doesn’t work. You can press the button on the screen, but it wouldn’t actually ‘press’, until you lift up the finger from the screen (button). Then it will set the tag and immediately reset it (I used momentary button; but same thing happens if I use standard button with keyPressed and keyReleased or mousePressed and mouseReleased events).
Same thing is with the Siemens WinCC Flexible runtime. The buttons are not pressed, until the finger is lifted off the button.
So I installed Win7pro on the tablet and now is OK. When you press the button, it gets pressed, sets the tag in PLC and when you lift your finger from the screen, the button is unpressed and tag is ‘reset’.
Second thing is the resolution of the screen: 1920x1080 is simply to much for such a small screen (11.6"). Even in plain Windows, for example, when you go on the internet with the browser (chrome), every thing is so small. And the hardest thing is pressing the links. Or resizing windows/dialogs.
In Ignition (also in WinCC) you can make all windows/screen in a smaller resolution, and then they’ll resize to the tablet screen resolution, but that’s not looking so good. Something, like titlebars, menu fonts, system dialogs, are not resized, and they look very small and it’s very hard to resize them or press the ‘X’ for closing them. Then there are the table fonts. They get resized, but it just looks terrible…
In WinCC Flexible, I’ve converted a real live project with cca. 50 screens from Industrial panel MP377 key, (800x600) to PC runtime (1920x1080). The conversion was is quite good (I just add the touch support - buttons) and when I started the runtime on the Acer tablet, it looks very good. All button, input fields, alarm texts, are big enough to press them or input values in them, all texts are big enough to read,…
OK, battery life: in specs stays 9 hours… 
You can forget that. 4-5, maybe 6 hours at best.
So, overall, the tablet is good, very good, but it ‘lacks software support’, if I my express my self so…
First, the Win8 are great at the starting, sleeping, waking up almost instantly. Win7 aren’t so quick and there is no Win7 drivers for the tablet. I used existing Win8 driver, they all installed fine, but some things are just not working right (for example sleep or hibernate: it does sleep, but when it wakes up, the screen is all white or cut in half. Only reboot helps).
I think, that it would be wise for Ignition to put some effort in better support for ‘touch experience’ (win8 touch, better resizing of components, texts, dialog windows, titlebars,…).
You know, tablets are nowadays IN. Even if they are not so functional (robust, support for other protocols, hardware) than panels, they are ‘fancy’. When you say to customer, hey, you can have this on a tablet and carry it around, to meeting, to office, home,…
And the price is very affordable against industrial (mobile) panels. For example, Siemens mobile panel IWLAN 277 costs around 4000€! (OK, it’s robust and support Profinet, but that’s all). How many tablets you can buy for that.
