Factors To Consider When Mounting A Meeting Room Display Tablet
Mounting a tablet takes ten minutes. Deciding where it goes takes a fortnight, and it is the fortnight that determines whether the finished job looks fitted or improvised.
The decision is not really about the tablet. It is about a doorway: which side, how high, what the wall is made of, where the power is coming from, and whether anything will be legible standing two metres away with sunlight on the screen.
None of it is difficult. All of it has to be agreed before the devices arrive, because most of it involves somebody other than you. Facilities, IT, the landlord, and occasionally whoever chose the door frames.
Below, we discuss what to settle at each door, in the order you will meet it while walking the floor.
Which Side of the Door
The side opposite the hinges.
People then read the panel and pull the door in one movement, and nobody is standing in the door swing to check the schedule. On the hinge side they do both, and in a busy corridor with meetings turning over on the hour that is a genuine nuisance.
Where a room has two doors, panel the one people actually use rather than the one nearest the room's name on the plan. Walk the floor at half past ten and watch which one gets opened.
How High
Between roughly 1.3 and 1.5 metres from the finished floor.
That is comfortable to read and tap standing up, and reachable from a wheelchair. Go higher and you have made the panel decorative, because anyone seated cannot use it and most people will not stretch to check a room they can see into anyway.
Keep it consistent across the floor. A corridor of panels at slightly different heights looks careless in a way that is hard to name and easy to notice.
What the Wall Is Made Of
The surface decides the fixing, and it is the single biggest driver of cost.
Glass. Very common on the corridor side of meeting rooms, and the one to plan around. Use an adhesive faceplate rather than drilling. Drilling a floor to ceiling pane is precision work for a glazier, ideally before the pane is installed, and a mistake means replacing the whole sheet. Where the frame beside the glass is deep enough, run the cable inside it and avoid the glass entirely.
Stud partition. The easiest case. There is a void behind, so the cable drops inside it and comes out where you want. It also allows semi-recessed mounting if the finish matters.
Concrete or brick. Screws and plugs, surface mount only. No recessing, so the casing's profile and finish are on display.
Wood or metal door frames. Often the tidiest route, because frames are frequently deep enough to carry the cable inside. The constraint is width: measure the flat area before you look at any casing, because plenty of them are wider than a standard frame and will overhang onto the glass or the architrave.
Where the Power Comes From
Every panel needs a continuous supply, and this is where installs stall.
Get hold of the floor schematics and look for where the existing runs go, because the cost of the install is mostly labour and making good afterwards. Guessing is expensive.
One shortcut is worth knowing. If the room already has card access or a magnetic lock, there is almost certainly a live run at the top or bottom of that door frame. Branching from it is dramatically cheaper than starting a fresh run from the riser.
If you are using Power over Ethernet, the run has to come from a switch with capacity to spare, and the cable and its connector head are thicker than a power flex. On a glazed room with a slim frame, that head size can be the deciding constraint. Measure the frame before you commit to PoE.
Whether the Network Reaches the Door
If the panel is on wireless, measure the signal at the door. Not near the door. At it, at mounting height, with the room door closed.
Wireless surveys get done in the open plan area where people sit. Meeting room doorways are in corridors, often behind lift cores, risers, kitchens and plant rooms, and the coverage there is regularly worse. A panel in a dead zone shows stale information and fails a booking at the moment somebody is standing in front of it, which is the fastest way to lose people's trust in the whole system.
An hour walking the floor with a laptop is the cheapest insurance on the project.
What It Will Actually Look Like
Two things get missed on a plan and are obvious on the wall.
Glare. A panel opposite a west-facing window is unreadable for an hour every afternoon. So is one under a downlight aimed straight at it. Stand where people will stand, at the times they will stand there.
Contrast. Casings come in black, white and silver. White disappears against plasterboard, black sits better against wood, dark frames and exposed concrete. Match to the door frames rather than the walls where the two differ, because the frame is what the eye groups the panel with.
Bring whoever cares about how the office looks into this conversation early. You will meet them eventually, and it is cheaper to meet them now.
Think About Getting It Off Again
A panel that is beautifully flush and sealed into the wall is a problem the day the device inside it has to be replaced.
Favour a mount whose back plate stays on the wall, and leave enough slack in the cable to bring the device forward without disturbing the fixing. On an adhesive mount to glass this matters most, because removing the faceplate means cleaning off the old bonding and starting again.
Per-Door Survey Checklist
Item | What to confirm, at the door |
|---|---|
Side | Opposite the hinges, on the door people actually use |
Height | 1.3 m to 1.5 m, consistent across the floor |
Surface | Glass, partition, concrete, wood or metal frame |
Fixing | Adhesive faceplate or screws, decided by the surface |
Frame width | Wide enough for the casing, deep enough for the cable head |
Power source | Existing run nearby, or a new one, and who pulls it |
PoE run | Switch capacity available, and the connector head fits |
Wireless | Measured at the door, at height, with the door shut |
Glare | Checked at the time of day the sun is on that wall |
Finish | Casing colour agreed against the door frames |
Servicing | Device can come off without redoing the fixing |
Making good | Who patches and repaints, and when |
Wrapping Up
Mounting is a coordination job more than a technical one, and it punishes late decisions rather than difficult ones.
Take an architecture practice of about 90 people moving into a converted mill. Exposed brick, no ceiling void, and meeting rooms with glass fronts in slim steel frames. Their contractor's plan was PoE to every door, which would have meant visible trunking across brick the practice had spent a year restoring, and connector heads too thick for the frames. Walking the floor with a tape measure and a laptop changed the answer at seven of the nine doors: power branched from the existing access control runs, thin flex inside the steel frames, and wireless verified at each doorway. One room near the stair core failed the signal check and got an access point moved three metres.
The survey took an afternoon. It saved the restoration and about three weeks of argument.
Walk your floor before you order anything. If you have a wall you are unsure about, send us a photo and we will tell you how we have handled it before.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which side of the door should the panel go?
The side opposite the hinges, so people can read it and pull the door in one movement without standing in the door swing.
How high should a meeting room tablet be mounted?
Between about 1.3 and 1.5 metres from the finished floor, so it is comfortable standing and reachable from a wheelchair. Keep it consistent across the floor.
Can we mount a panel on a glass wall?
Yes, using an industrial adhesive faceplate rather than drilling, and running the cable down the frame beside the glass. Drilling glass is a glazier's job and a mistake costs the whole pane.
Where does the power usually come from?
Most often from an existing run near the door. If the room has card access or a magnetic lock, there is nearly always a supply in the frame already, and branching from it is far cheaper than a new run.
Do we need Power over Ethernet?
No. It is tidier at scale and it lets you reboot a panel from the switch, but it needs a data run to every door and a thicker cable than a power flex. On a slim glazed frame that can rule it out.
How do we know the Wi-Fi will reach?
Measure it at each door, at mounting height, with the room door shut. Corridors are routinely worse covered than the open plan areas where surveys get done.
What about sunlight on the screen?
Check each position at the time of day the sun is on that wall. A panel opposite a west-facing window can be unreadable for an hour every afternoon.
