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Earlier this 12 months, I seemed at the concept of deploying AirPlay 2 utilizing in the classroom with out utilizing Apple. I’ve now deployed 30 AirPlay 2 TVs to my total college, and I’ve lived to inform you the benefits, negatives, and pitfalls.
About Making The Grade: Every Saturday, Bradley Chambers publishes a brand new article about Apple in training. He has been managing Apple gadgets in an training surroundings since 2009. Through his expertise deploying and managing 100s of Macs and 100s of iPads, Bradley will spotlight methods in which Apple’s merchandise work at scale, tales from the trenches of IT administration, and methods Apple may enhance its merchandise for college students.
To be clear, it’s going to be a lot simpler to deploy Apple TVs related to current TVs as it is possible for you to to handle them via your cellular machine administration answer for controlling updates, putting in apps remotely, and many others. It’s additionally much more costly. The present Apple TV prices almost 1 / 4 of what we paid for every of our TVs. We select a 55″ Samsung TV for a couple of causes. The first was that it supported AirPlay 2. The second motive was that it was in inventory. Due to COVID–19 slowing manufacturing down worldwide, it was surprisingly exhausting to discover a retailer with 30 of the identical TVs in inventory that may very well be shipped in an affordable time-frame. We mounted the TVs to a rolling TV cart that has a spot to place a laptop computer.
Building the mounts took longer than configuring the TVs
While I like the rolling cart mannequin for our AirPlay 2 in the classroom answer, they’re gradual to assemble. If you may have a services employees that you would be able to outsource that course of, it would drastically velocity up your deployment time. It takes round a half-hour per cart should you don’t have a single interruption. The carts are working effectively, although. The TVs are sturdy, and the laptops match properly on the tray.
Configuration is a gradual course of
Because I used to be setting them up individually, I needed to repeat the identical course of over and over. I’d first boot up the TV, join it to our Wi-Fi, skip over as many steps as potential to arrange a Samsung account, and then replace the software program on the TV. I’d then identify the TV the final identify of the instructor’s classroom utilizing it and then configure AirPlay 2. I set it up the place it requires a PIN code for every time a tool desires to AirPlay to it.
The longest a part of the course of is eradicating all of the built-in Samsung “channels.” If you don’t, the TV boots are straight as much as random channels taking part in Hell’s Kitchen, Baywatch, and the nationwide information. Regardless of the grade, nearly none of them had been college applicable. Samsung doesn’t make this course of straightforward, however it may be accomplished. It took me extra time than I’d have favored to search out the precise components to disable them. Once that was accomplished, the TV boots as much as a “no input selected” display till you provoke AirPlay.
Use HDMI cables as a backup when AirPlay fails
The one factor I communicated to our lecturers is that AirPlay isn’t excellent, and I can’t assure it would work 100% of the time. There isn’t a lot troubleshooting accomplished on the TV apart from unplugging it from energy and rebooting it fully. For that motive, we included an HDMI to USB-C cable on every TV to make use of if AirPlay isn’t working effectively for no matter motive.
Wrap up on AirPlay 2 in the classroom with out Apple TV
Since I used to be solely deploying 30 TVs, I may handle this answer. For giant districts, it’s going to be a greater plan to connect Apple TVs to a generic monitor to help AirPlay in the classroom. Since Apple TVs might be managed with no need to set them up forward of time, they are going to be sooner to deploy.
Overall, our AirPlay 2 in the classroom answer has been working fairly effectively for us. It’s been one thing we’ve relied on closely as lecturers and college students have moved again and forth between being on campus and digital.
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