SMART table
Ideum’s multi-touch product tailored to public spaces
CORRALES — Imagine setting your cup of coffee down on a table that can tell you what type of bean it was made from and what flavor it is.
This is exactly what Ideum, a Corrales technology company, has available with its new Pico Multitouch Coffee Table.
The interactive table can, of course, do more than tell you what kind of coffee you are drinking. It has enough memory for video games and interactive scholastic applications.
“We began building this type of touch table for universities,” Ideum CEO Jim Spadaccini said. “They use them for anything from student lounges to reading rooms.”
The company has been selling the latest version for about a month.
Spadaccini said the touch tables offer an informal environment where a couple of people can sit down to research or study together.
“We have sold a few of these tables in the past for private residential use, but they are made for high-traffic areas that can withstand a spilled drink and many users, so they are not cheap,” he said. “If you are in the market for one of these coffee tables, the average price is $7,000.”
The table top is made with a 43-inch, 4K ultra-high definition flat screen built into an aluminum shell that rests on a cast iron base that stands over 22 inches tall.
The table comes with a wireless keyboard and a two-key access panel that opens up underneath to reveal the hardware for maintenance or upgrades.
“You could go out try and build one of these tables for half the price, but keep in mind we use the highest end touch control with 80 touch points, the highest end monitor, plus a $600 graphics card inside, plus 16 gigs of ram,” Spadaccini said.
Matt Gallegos, hardware product manager for Ideum, said the table can run anything that runs on Windows.
“You can run any video game titles on the table plus a virtual reality headset,” Gallegos said. “Its like a giant tablet but with high-end gaming components.”
“These machines are created to run 24/7, so we use the best LG screens made to make sure the table lasts,” he said.
Ideum has offered tech coffee tables for years, but the company has learned how to make them more efficient through trial and error, Gallegos said.
“We changed the aesthetic so it would look a little more at home, in a home and not so out of place,” Gallegos said. “The base is sturdier, and if there are problems or upgrades we’ve made it easier to access the control panels.”
Spadaccini said he isn’t sure what Christmas may have in store for the newly upgraded tech coffee tables.
“The price is a big factor,” he said. “I think if we could get the price to around $3,000 to $4,000 we could sell more, but we want to continue to offer a quality product that focuses on public and collaborative spaces, and because of that our product has to be made to last.”