Forum Discussion
Surface Hub Suggestion Box
Wild suggestion:
"Surface Hub Lite" running on the new Raspberry Pi 4.
Surface Hub is great, but relatively costly for small businesses, the functionality of document sharing and Miracast are great, so providing a lightweight version of Surface Hub which can be plugged into an existing conventional TV in meeting rooms would be a great compliment to Surface Hub.
Daniel Hudson I regularly use the remote display capabilities of Windows 10, but Apple doesn't support Miracast and many colleagues use Macbooks with Teams. It would be slicker to have either a Teams Room or Surface Hub Lite on the TV without expensive hardware.
bobdvb I feel like I'm missing your arguement. The idea of a 'Surface Hub Lite' doesn't make sense to me.
I'm not sure how exactly you can get to a "Surface Hub Lite" running on a raspberry pi 4. For a start, where's the touchscreen? Windows 10 Team is made for touch; you can't just plug this in and suddenly turn a TV into a touch capable device.
If you're talking about a Windows 10 experience for cheap, then just buy a Windows 10 PC and plug it into a TV, but I'll guarentee that isn't going to deliver what Surface Hub does. I know that for a fact; that's exactly what my company tried before I stepped in and championed Surface Hub for our meeting rooms.
I think the problem with the arguement is that ultimately this isn't what Surface Hub is about; if Microsoft wanted to make a cheaper version they absolutely could, but they aren't interested in compromising the experience or making that experience worse or limiting. It's meant to be a flagship product that provides everything you need in a meeting room.
There are many competing products out there now (Cisco Webex Board, Google Jamboard etc.) but in my experience these cheaper products are indeed inferior.
David Phillips is right, if you want a conferncing experience with the advantage of screen sharing at a cheaper price, consider Microsoft Teams Rooms. We use the Lenovo ThinkSmart Hub 500 and it comes in around £1,800-£2,000 depending on supplier.
If you just want to screen share , go with the Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter and an Apple TV hooked into a standard TV. Or just, you know, an HDMI cable!