Forum Discussion
Surface Hub - First Impressions after initial setup
• Have to reload/reset device to change time zones.
• Only (1) admin account is allowed. forces groups but what if i need a seperate group for vendor/contractor access?
• Reload/reset device took ~6 hrs to complete. Need faster processor? Better drives? More memory? For a system loaded with a trimmed down version of Win10 its too long.
• When setup in a conference room it will have to be mounted in a way that no one can unplug the device while its reloading. All you see is a black screen with a pinwheel. Asked several support staff what they would try if someone reported this behavior. Their answer was how long has it been doing this? Then they said reboot the device. Well for a normal workstation that may work on the Hub you will BRICK the device. NEVER POWER OFF the device when its reloading or MS support may have to replace the drive to get it working again. The only way to avoid a user from doing this is mount on wall and build out a box to hide the power cord and power buttons. Then you lose access to the USB ports as well. Bad design IMO. Never test without a couple of technically challenged people to find your gaps.
• MS app store is bare. what purpose does the app store provide when there are literally (6) apps (business only ignoring games)available that were not preinstalled.
• Unable to load any 3rd party applications on the device like WebEx. I understand that this is a MS product and Skype is their official chat/video client but to handicap customers into a single app is reminiscent of Apple. (boo!) Why no support for 3rd party apps that customers are guaranteed to use or own. Makes the adoption of this sort of item overly complicated.
• Window key does not open search function.
• Must use Task View to close open windows, everyone’s initial reaction is to click the arrow in the top left, which just replaced the standard maximize window icon, you know the one you have used for decades now.
• Lack of documentation. Other than the initial setup guide there is nothing readily available that maps out use cases for the device. If you purchase a Hub to demo and determine if it will meet your corporate needs wouldn’t it be nice to offer some guidance on what the device can do. Makes testing and functionality testing a lot faster for those of us that don’t have time to sit and play all day.
• No "User Voice" community for the product
• Need ability to use SCCM and WSUS for management and updates. Both are MS products so why isn’t it there already? You expect me to purhcase MS Intune to manage a $15k device? once again I already have investments in another 3rd party solution for MDM.
• Calendar on home screen states out of sync at least once a day. Reading up on this it seems there are some Exchange setting guidelines for using a Hub. Would be nice if that was pre-set when using an O365 E5 trial license, my scenario and it’s not working correctly.
Overall I do like the device but the limitations above make it that much harder to sell in a corporate environment as a go-to solution for conference rooms. Hopefully this doesn’t disappear like other MS projects (Surface Table anyone) from years past and gets the attention it deserves.
4 Replies
- Christian Schacht
Microsoft
Hi David,
nice to meet you! Let me try to give you some answers bellow :-)Have to reload/reset device to change time zones.
This is possible in "Settings" -> "Time and language" -> "Time Zone"
• Reload/reset device took ~6 hrs to complete. Need faster processor? Better drives? More memory? For a system loaded with a trimmed down version of Win10 its too long.
• When setup in a conference room it will have to be mounted in a way that no one can unplug the device while its reloading. All you see is a black screen with a pinwheel. Asked several support staff what they would try if someone reported this behavior. Their answer was how long has it been doing this? Then they said reboot the device. Well for a normal workstation that may work on the Hub you will BRICK the device. NEVER POWER OFF the device when its reloading or MS support may have to replace the drive to get it working again. The only way to avoid a user from doing this is mount on wall and build out a box to hide the power cord and power buttons. Then you lose access to the USB ports as well. Bad design IMO. Never test without a couple of technically challenged people to find your gaps.This was significant improved with the anniversary update, also the reset now indicates the progress with a % to avoid users to turn off the device
• MS app store is bare. what purpose does the app store provide when there are literally (6) apps (business only ignoring games)available that were not preinstalled.
There are more and more apps coming nearly daily, an small example list here:
3D Play, AutoCAD 360, AX-Lite video player, Bullclip, Buzz Radar Command Centre, Catchbook, Collaboard, Drawboard PDF, Hub Media Player, Mediator, Mural, Muscular System - 3D, Atlas of Anatomy, Network File Manager 10, Remote Desktop, Save to USB, Siemens JT2GO, Sketchable, Staffpad, StormBoard, TechSmith Loop, The 3D Classroom, Virbeya, VLC, XOS Thundercloud• Unable to load any 3rd party applications on the device like WebEx. I understand that this is a MS product and Skype is their official chat/video client but to handicap customers into a single app is reminiscent of Apple. (boo!) Why no support for 3rd party apps that customers are guaranteed to use or own. Makes the adoption of this sort of item overly complicated.
The Windows Store is open for everyone to publish apps, Surface Hub runs Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps. and with this also Cisco or others could create own apps and upload them. Apps must be targeted for the Universal device family and could be tested in the so called developer mode, more information about this topic could be found here: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/itpro/surface-hub/install-apps-on-surface-hub
• Lack of documentation. Other than the initial setup guide there is nothing readily available that maps out use cases for the device. If you purchase a Hub to demo and determine if it will meet your corporate needs wouldn’t it be nice to offer some guidance on what the device can do. Makes testing and functionality testing a lot faster for those of us that don’t have time to sit and play all day.
You might find this links usefull, in special the Surface Hub Training is super usefull as it
is a full recorded 2-day Surface Hub Training including labs which guide you through the deployment and troubleshooting steps:Surface Hub Quickstart : https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/20431/surfacehub-videos
Surface Hub Training : http://www.aka.ms/SurfaceHubTrainingSurface
Hub Technet Documentation: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/itpro/surface-hub/index
Surface Hub Apps Dev: https://aka.ms/surfacehubappsdev
Surface Hub Support : https://aka.ms/SurfaceHubSupport• Must use Task View to close open windows, everyone’s initial reaction is to click the arrow in the top left, which just replaced the standard maximize window icon, you know the one you have used for decades now.
You could also drag the app window down from the top of the screen to close.
• Need ability to use SCCM and WSUS for management and updates. Both are MS products so why isn’t it there already? You expect me to purhcase MS Intune to manage a $15k device? once again I already have investments in another 3rd party solution for MDM.
Surface Hub has been validated with Microsoft’s first-party MDM providers:
- On-premises MDM with System Center Configuration Manager (beginning in version 1602)
- Hybrid MDM with System Center Configuration Manager and Microsoft Intune
- Microsoft Intune standalone
You can also manage Surface Hubs using any third-party MDM provider that can communicate with Windows 10 using the MDM protocol.
Full topic here: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/itpro/surface-hub/manage-settings-with-mdm-for-surface-hub
Surface Hub could be Updated with direct Internet Connection / WSUS and also with WUfB more details could be found here: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/itpro/surface-hub/manage-windows-updates-for-surface-hub
Hope this helps to clarify some topics :-)
Christian
- I agree with a lot of your points, especially the not having an SCCM. In our setup, we have about 30 deployed globally and having a way to centrally manage them all would be a huge benefit, without purchasing another MS product when we already have Airwatch.
In terms of the admin accounts, we have an active directory setup, so we have anyone who needs access join the security group and have access to admin rights on all of our hubs. We have found that no one outside of anyone who is setting it up needs those rights, as they would not be configuring it, or changing any of the settings (The only real uses for admin privileges) .
The anniversary update also fixed two of the things you have issues with. Time-zones can be changed in settings without having to reset/reconfig the device. As well the reset time is down to under an hour now, at least from what we have been told (I have not reset one since the update) so I can not verify that it is 100% true. When I have had to reset things in the past, I initiate the restart at the end of the day and do the re-config the next morning.
For the powering off of the Hubs, when we mount our hubs, we have the power and data plugs behind where the hub sits on the wall for any Wall Mounts, so the user cannot see any of the cables and think to turn it off with the power rocker switch. If we have a Pedestal mount, which in my opinion look the best, the power and data are hidden behind the cover. For the power button on the side, we have a user guide laminated and printed off that sits next to the hub that tells users how to use it, and one of the things at the end is to only hit the end session button, and leave it powered on. Obviously a user would have to read it to know not to do that, but in the 6.5 months we have had these in conference rooms, we have not once had an issue with anyone bricking one. Good points, I agree with all of them.
The Exchange account sync was supposed to have been fixed with the anniversary update, but it still seems to be hanging around in some form or another. My experience was the update went from frequent account sync issues to 'no internet connectivity' with an occasional 'your appointments may be out of date'. I was able to eliminate the 'no internet connectivity' issue by bypassing proxy authentication for my devices. Jury is still out on the account sync thing.
The apps have to get a lot more Surface Hub - friendly too. Just let me log in to apps without first having to create profiles that are just going to get deleted when "I'm Done".
Great points here, can't agree with you more. In fact, I was coming here to post a couple of concerns myself, in particular just piling on to your question around the Resets and administration:
• Only (1) admin account is allowed. forces groups but what if i need a seperate group for vendor/contractor access?
• Reload/reset device took ~6 hrs to complete. Need faster processor? Better drives? More memory? For a system loaded with a trimmed down version of Win10 its too longFor the admin account, I have to imagine you can have a Surface Hub Admin group or something, and then nest users or other groups (for contractors) that might be admins. However, we did not do this on first setup of our (5), and now we want to add another admin group, or shift it. And we can't. So.... 6 hours to reset the3 device is pretty lame, and is a bit frustrating that it would require that level of effort, or time, just to make a simple administrative change.
