Meeting room digital displays has been an interesting entry-level opportunity for companies in the digital signage ecosystem to start selling into workplaces that maybe don’t have their heads around a full solution.

Screens at conference room doorways is a start, and I have had it confirmed many times that a simple solution like that often expands into a large digital signage solution.

Now there are companies looking more deeply into office dynamics in 2020, and applying tech to solve other problems – like reserving and hanging onto desks in so-called office hotels, where workers don’t have permanent desk assignments.

Taiwan’s IAdea – which makes media players, small all-in-one displays and supporting software – has done a partnership with the Danish meeting room assignment software firm Pronestor on a desk booking solution.

The IAdea Desk Booking Device (WDB) sits at the edge of a desk or shelf, allowing workers to easily see whether the desk is free or in use via the clear status LED.

The display-less design ensures total cost of ownership (TCO) is kept to a minimum. The desk booking device is both ultra power-efficient and a highly cost-effective solution, which is designed to empower operators considering a deployment of any size. 

Up to six Desk Booking Devices can be linked to IAdea’s Desk Booking Gateway via simple USB connection, which is then connected via PoE+ switch to a central control software.

The solution is billed as a solution that “streamlines and simplifies the use of open offices, hot desk spaces, coworking spaces, desk hoteling, or campus and library environments with shared study spaces.”

The devices link with Pronestor’s desk-booking solution that enables things like showing available desks on different floors and across locations, enabling reservations and also showing where colleagues are sitting.

The two companies will be showing the solution next week at Iadea’s stand at ISE, in Hall 8.