There are two primary technologies for wireless voting, infrared and radio.  This refers to the methodology for data communications between a base station and its keypads.  Infrared is a lower cost technology and today it is considerably more reliable than earlier versions. Its limitations are narrow bandwidth and distance. Sending a single digit vote over a relatively short distance is what it has been designed to do.

If your audience is no more than 40 people, and if your software need does not include multi-digit voting, then infrared deserves consideration. A complete system of 40 keypads, a base station, the software, and case can be up to 25% less than the price of a standard radio system. This makes it a rather attractive alternative.

Infrared audience response technology has been around for a few years, but buyers beware of overstatements by some notorious vendors in the industry.  In our view, infrared is just not suitable when the distance between a keypad and a base station is more than about 50 feet.  In a typical room, that means a maximum of about 50 people.  

Another consideration for IR is the placement of the base station.  Typically, it will be near the presentation computer, but IR keypads need line-of-sight to the base station.  So, if the screen is in the front of the room and the computer with base station is at the back of the room, the audience will have to bounce the light signal off the screen, which impacts performance.

If your need exceeds infrared limitations, you'll need an audience response system based on radio technology.  Before looking at a specific brand, you should first decide between single-digit voting and multi-digit voting.   Consider your organization's requirements over the next three to four years.  You will pay a premium for multi-digit capability, but it is necessary for certain applications.

Multi-digit voting allows you to do things that simply can not be done with single digit entry.  For example, with single digit voting if you ask everyone to enter their age you must offer the choices in a range such as: a) Less than 18 b) 18 to 25 c) 26 to 35, and so on. Then the system might show that 23% of the audience is 26 to 35 years old. It is important to notice though, that they could all be 26, or all 35, or any of many combinations.

The same question using multi-digit voting allows each person to enter their own two-digit age.  Since the captured data is extremely granular, you can report the exact number of people for each year of age on a scale of 1 to 99.  In this way, the mean average for the group is a precise measurement, rather than being an average of ranges. 

A few other examples of multi-digit voting are: enter all of the choices that apply; rank order (prioritize) dozens of items, ideas, or actions; enter a company location number; choose which of these 200 cities; what percent of a budget would you allocate to this expense; what is your annual salary; vote for multiple candidates to fill board seats; and game shows that allow people to wager the number points entered.  

If these types of questions are important to the work that you'll be doing, then your choice should be a multi-digit capable hardware platform.   

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