A keypad by the front, LED panels the room can read from the back, and a phone app for the sound desk. It makes its own network, so nothing about it depends on the church's internet.
Three keys and it is on the wall. Whoever is announcing does not need to have met the system before.
Pick the book with one key if you use more than one. Press # to send.
Abbreviation on one half, number on the other, so nobody has to work out which book is meant.
The app does the same job from the sound desk. The keypad still works with no phone present.
The difference is dot spacing, and that decides how far back the room can still read it. Mix them if the building needs it — one controller drives up to ten panels of either kind.
128 × 32 dots. Reads from about six metres — a chapel, or the front of a gallery.
64 × 16 dots. Reads from about ten metres — a long hall, a high mount, an overflow room.
Sizes are nominal, from the module pitch, and the distances are the usual rule of thumb for that pitch. Tell us the room and we will say which we would fit.
The controller makes its own Wi-Fi for the app and drives the panels over a separate radio link. Broadband down, router unplugged: no difference.
Each one confirms what it was sent. One that does not answer is retried, then named on the controller's screen, rather than quietly showing last week's hymn.
Network name, password, your books and their colours. Plug it in and type a number — there is no setup wizard and no account.
They live on the device, not in an app. Nothing to restore after a bad night, and the keypad works whether or not a phone is nearby.
The handbook is the whole of the operating instructions, written for whoever is on the rota rather than for whoever signs for it. It is the fairest way to judge whether this suits your volunteers.
The keypad, the app, the screen, and what to do when a panel goes dark.
Its depth, where panels could hang, and which books you sing from. That is enough for us to say what we would fit and what it would cost.