EPISODE 178 | Guest: Trey Hicks, COO & CSO of Visix, Inc.
The rise of hybrid workplaces and office hoteling has created a need for better room and desk booking solutions. While LCD signs were an early option, ePaper has emerged as the superior technology that’s more efficient, sustainable and cost-effective, especially when deployed at scale. The age of LCD signs for workspaces is over, and ePaper displays are now the go-to choice for the modern workplace.
We take a deep dive into the practical advantages of ePaper over traditional LCDs, focusing on the massive difference in total cost of ownership (TCO). Our conversation covers the “Big Three” factors – acquisition, installation and maintenance – to show how ePaper’s wireless, battery-powered design saves significant time and money, avoids network congestion and creates a cleaner, more professional aesthetic. It’s a practical breakdown of why ePaper is simply a smarter investment for any organization embracing flexible office models.
- Discover how ePaper creates a seamless experience for office hoteling and hot desking.
- Learn why ePaper’s total cost of ownership is significantly lower than LCDs at scale.
- Understand how ePaper simplifies installation and maintenance compared to wired LCDs.
- Get the details on the massive energy savings and sustainability benefits of E Ink technology.
- Explore various applications for ePaper signs, from desk booking to digital nameplates.
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See our four ePaper sign specifications and learn more here.
Transcript
Derek DeWitt: What digital signage is and what it is used for has certainly changed a lot in the last, oh, let’s say 20, 25 years, even 30 years, since it really first showed up on the scene. One of the ways it’s being used a lot now is sort of a more scaled down and focused product called room signs. And then of course, room signs themselves over the years evolved into having different kinds of displays, different kinds of functionality, different kinds of calendars, and so on. And then ePaper technology really improved to the point where it could start being used as well.
Well, here we are in 2025, and my guest today thinks that the age of the LCD desk sign is basically over, and the ePaper sign has come into its own. And we’re gonna talk today about why this is, and how ePaper is just, it just makes much more sense than using those old LCD signs that we started off with back in the day.
My guest today is Trey Hicks. He is COO and CSO of Visix. Hi, Trey, thanks for coming on today.
Trey Hicks: Hey, Derek, thanks for having me. Looking forward to talking about ePaper.
Derek DeWitt: Excellent. I’d like to thank Trey for coming on, and of course, everybody out there forward listening to this episode of Digital Signage Done Right. I’ll remind you that you can subscribe and share and review, and you can follow along with a transcript on the Visix website.
Okay. So, Trey, you are pro ePaper now, huh? You’re just like, forget the LCD stuff, man, ePaper is the way to go.
Trey Hicks: Yeah. Well, we started working with ePaper technology just over a decade ago, and I have to admit, when we started investing in the technology and pulling product and software together, it wasn’t too pretty. The ePaper signs were really dim, the pixel resolution wasn’t very good at all. But I’m so glad that we started that early, because the journey has helped us understand the true benefits of the ePaper technology.
Derek DeWitt: And clients have definitely caught up to that thinking. Tell us a bit about who’s using ePaper and how they’re using it.
Trey Hicks: The type of firms and organizations that are using ePaper today is very varied. You know, today we’re working a lot with professional service firms, so law firms, consulting firms, accounting firms and other large professional service organizations. You know, tons of companies and corporations, universities, K-12, hospitality, certainly even healthcare. I mean, really today a lot different than when we started our E Ink journey, ePaper is making its way into every market, every vertical.
And broadly speaking, what these different companies and firms and organizations are using ePaper for, it’s pretty varied. You know, it starts with meeting room signs, and then what’s really taken off in the last couple years is using ePaper signs at your desk and at your workspaces for office hoteling.
We know that hybrid work has taken off big time in the last couple years. You know, hybrid refers to where and when people work. And the way to really organize that is with office hoteling, which relates to how people actually use office space. You know, employees reserve or book a desk or an office for the day. So, that’s a big place that ePaper signs are showing up, at the workspace at the desk to support office hoteling. The applications and where ePaper is going just keeps going.
You know, two other big areas I’ll mention real quick. We have, you know, lots of clients and lots of firms are using ePaper signs as room placards and also as digital name plates because, you know, Derek, you and I can think about all the office spaces that we’ve been in where you have a printed physical sign made out of acrylic, you know, the room numbers, all that stuff. And this is Allison Smith’s office, but if Allison Smith changes locations, changes offices or whatever, you might have to just replace that sign, physical sign, altogether. Take the one you’ve got and throw it away.
Derek DeWitt: Yeah. It reminds me of like in the old movies, you know, when somebody would get fired from the company and then, you know, there’s a worker using a razor blade to scrape the paint off the window, you know, the glass, the glass door that had their name on it, and then they have to bring in another guy to paint the new name. You know, like, we’ve come a long way, baby.
Trey Hicks: Yeah, we have. Now all we have to do is just type in the new name and it magically appears on the ePaper sign outside the office. So, you know, firms, universities and companies, anybody involved in office hoteling, you know, as they start to think about, well, what kind of display technology might help us elevate the workplace experience for our employees?
Derek DeWitt: Right. We’ve seen tons of studies talking about why workplace experience is important. It’s really a subset of the overall employee experience, which we know affects satisfaction, productivity, talent retention, and lots of other bottom-line metrics. And workplace experience includes all the tech and tools, and how they support that employee experience and culture. Especially with office hoteling, which might be new to some folks, you don’t want technology or systems that frustrate people.
So, tell us a bit about how ePaper supports the hoteling workplace experience.
Trey Hicks: You know, really what we mean is when employees come into the office, you know, an employee who’s booked a desk, you know, for the day from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, you know, whatever that time range is, you know, when that employee comes to the office, we want it to be super easy for the employee to spot their desk, to know they’re at the right spot. And that’s why we want a little ePaper sign there or some kind of sign.
And the other thing that that sign can do is give them a super easy way to check in for the day. So they just scan the QR code on the desk, they check in from their phone and then they’re set. You know, it’s just that simple,
Derek DeWitt: Right. And then other people can also see, oh, this person not only reserved it, but they checked in and so I can’t sit there.
Trey Hicks: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, the little desk signs, the workspace signs, also support hot desking. You know, so maybe, Derek, you’re heading to the office for the day and you forgot to book a desk in advance. Well, that’s okay. Hopefully you’re lucky and there’s still, you know, some spots available.
But when you get to that little workspace sign, again, you’re just gonna scan the QR code, you know, it’s gonna open the app on your phone for the office scheduling platform that you guys already use, and you’re gonna be able to book that desk on the spot. You’re gonna book it for the day, however long you need it, and then that little sign on the desk is gonna update to say, hey, this workspace is reserved for Derek for these hours. You know, it just makes it easier.
Derek DeWitt: Right. So, back off buddy!
Trey Hicks: Yeah, that’s my desk.
The other thing that having the desk signs does, Derek, is it reinforces the use of office hoteling in the workplace. Why? Because visually, as employees come into that office, they physically see the presence of office hoteling in that space, because they see those desk signs. It makes it easier to get buy-in and participation by employees because it’s not just in the cloud.
Derek DeWitt: Right. If you want to have a hoteling culture and want to get people to use the fancy scheduling system you have in place, you have to make it visible somehow. If it’s just an app in the cloud, if people don’t even know they’re supposed to book those shared spaces, they’re not embracing the hoteling culture you’re investing time and money to create. You just have a bunch of people sitting wherever they want and probably causing confusion.
And it’s important to use the system. If you’re paying for a scheduling platform or occupancy system, you’re likely doing it not only to improve things for employees. You’re using the booking data and analytics to look at space usage and make real business decisions with that data. Can you reduce your real estate footprint? Can you repurpose some desks that aren’t being used? It’s all about cost management.
On that note, let’s talk a little about total cost of ownership for ePaper.
Trey Hicks: You know, this is just one of the many ways, Derek, where the traditional LCD display, while it can be great for the meeting room. We have a couple different meeting room signs, you know, with the interactive LCD touchscreen and all that fun stuff, and they’re great for meeting rooms.
But, Derek, I want to tell you where it really kind of starts to fall apart from a cost perspective – when we talk about hundreds of desk and workspaces. When you look at desk sign solutions, you know, from different companies, you know, might be maybe Crestron, maybe Embrava, it’s kind of like a one-size-fits-all. You know, maybe there’s only one or two products to choose from. When we take a hard look at it, what we see is that ePaper signs, on a per sign basis, start out less than half the price.
For large enterprise firms that we’re working with today, and many of those are global, we’re talking about, you know, a thousand or more, you know, it could be 2000 or more. So it, you know, it adds up fast. I mean, you take just, let’s say $150 difference in price and let’s multiply that out over just 500 workspaces. That’s a cost difference of $75,000.
Derek DeWitt: That’s a huge cost savings!
Trey Hicks: Other advantages of using ePaper is the Big Three. And what I mean by the Big Three is cost to acquire or purchase the technology, the cost to install or deploy the technology, Derek, and also the cost to maintain it, to support it.
You know what another factor is that the little LCD displays, they completely rely on a wired connection for power. And at first, Derek, you may be like, well, you know, that’s not a big deal. Okay, so there’s one cable that you plug into a power strip, or maybe it’s USB, you gotta plug it in for power. You know, we’re really used to that. But the problem is, if you need to do that for 500, 1000, 1500, that’s 1500 opportunities a day for some of those to get unplugged.
Derek DeWitt: Yeah, that’s true. Especially if you have an in-office cat or something.
Trey Hicks: Yeah, yeah. We’ve all done it. You get to the desk and the battery’s running low on your phone, and so you need to plug it in, and you’re looking for a free plugin, you know, on the power strip or USB port to plug that thing in because you gotta keep your phone going, right? And when you have 500, 1000 or more desk signs in place, this creates kind of a nightmare for IT.
And it kind of holds back the whole workplace experience, because employees come in and they’re looking for their desk and they’re seeing little signs that are blank. They’re turned off because they’re unplugged.
You know, if every desk sign has a cable, it just looks messy. You know, really what you want, is you want a professional clean work environment. EPaper signs are wireless and battery powered. They don’t need to be plugged in anywhere.
So, what it allows our clients to do is to focus on where they would like to place the desk sign in that environment, you know, at that desk. With a wireless and battery-powered ePaper sign, you can place it, you know, where you would like for it to be best. You don’t have to worry about, oh, this thing has a cable, how am I gonna run this cable from where I would like to place the sign to where it needs to plug in?
Derek DeWitt: Right. I was just gonna say like, you know, if the outlet’s on the right side of the desk, well, I guess I gotta put it over there. But if there’s no cable, you can put it wherever you like.
Trey Hicks: Exactly. So, let’s say in one office, you’ve got 120 to put out. Well, if you can just go out and place those 120 desk signs, and sure, we’ve got different ways to secure them. A simple solution is the 3M adhesive strips, you know, just to literally stick them in place where they need to be. So, you can just go and put those in place at those 120 workstations. But now if you have to route cables and tie down cables and make sure they reach to get plugged in, then that’s a whole different deal.
Derek DeWitt: Right. Again, like you said, if you’re thinking of it just as a one-off, it’s like, well, it’s not really that big a deal. Now multiply that by a thousand, hey, guess what? That’s a day. Minimum one whole day’s salary and one whole day’s work minimum for one or two people to do this fiddly little work. You know, it takes, what, 15, 20 minutes each one? Well, you know, there aren’t that many 20-minute segments in the day, so when you scale up, it becomes a much bigger headache.
Trey Hicks: And let’s talk about network connectivity for a minute, you know, because that’s a big one. So, you know, you’ve got, you know, again, maybe 500 desks that you would like to have desk signs to help improve the workplace experience.
Well, with the traditional approach of the little LCD or the little tablet displays, each one of those has to be connected to the wifi network. This adds congestion to the already burdened wifi network with all of our phones and tablets and laptops. And the minute that that office, that building, for one reason or another, they need to update the password for the wifi network, oh my gosh. You may have a few hundred desk signs in that one building where you gotta go around and update all the passwords.
Derek DeWitt: Again, that’s like a day.
Trey Hicks: Yeah. It can be a nightmare.
The really cool thing about the ePaper technology that we offer is it has its own dedicated wireless network. There’s never a password to change at the desk. You’ve just eliminated all the congestion, all the password nightmares and all the confusion, which means you’ve got a more bulletproof installation that is low maintenance compared to potentially a lot of maintenance.
Derek DeWitt: Right. And ultimately, I mean, when you’re looking at things from sort of a more macro level, I mean, this is a bottom-line savings. You’re not paying someone to waste their entire day doing this pretty repetitive task over and over again. Boom. You just lost a day. Well, only five workdays in the week. So you know, you’ve just lost 20% of that person’s weekly productivity to do this thing. That salary can now be spent doing something else.
And another thing that comes to mind, of course, when we’re talking about actual financial savings is obviously the electricity issue, because ePaper uses far less electricity.
Trey Hicks: Oh, absolutely. It’s a night and day difference. You know, when we think about the traditional little LCD displays, you know, one plugged in at every desk, those little desk signs, you have to keep them plugged in 24/7, 365 days a year. You know, you’ve got 500 desk signs in place. Those 500 desk signs are gonna run 8760 hours a year, because they have to stay plugged in, they’re like little computers, you know? They’re not something that you can turn off and turn on daily. They’re always running.
To contrast with that, if we think about the workday, let’s just use a nice round number. Let’s say, well, we really only need to refer to or to look at the desk signs about 10 hours a day, and there are about 250 workdays in the average year. That’s only 2,500 hours, right?
Derek DeWitt: That’s like 6200 hours of waste.
Trey Hicks: Waste! Yeah. That electricity is really just getting burned up by hundreds of little devices. It really adds up. You know, the E Ink technology, ePaper signs, they run on recyclable batteries for five years or more.
You know, these are ePaper signs, these are desk signs that automatically update throughout the day as people book spaces. So they’re dynamic, they’re automated, but yet they still run on batteries for five years or more, which is incredible. It’s due to the bistable E Ink technology. You know, when they’re not updating, they’re practically using zero power at all. You know, they’re in a standby mode, absolutely conserving power until it’s time for them to update with a booking again.
Derek DeWitt: Right, right. So, that’s even less that you’re using it, even if you’re saying you need 2500 hours, but you don’t need 2500 hours of constant electricity use or battery use for ePaper and E Ink, because it’s only using power when it changes the image. Which, if I’m using it for office hoteling, it changed at the beginning of the day and that’s it. It doesn’t change till I leave. So, it only changes twice during the day, which is what, one second?
Trey Hicks: Yeah, yeah. And we’re taking full advantage of that, you know, that fact to maximize battery life. And that’s why we can say with confidence, you’re gonna get five years or more from your desk signs, because they’re not updating 20 times a day
Derek DeWitt: Now, but these do use RF transmitters though, and those also need electricity, yeah?
Trey Hicks: Yeah. That’s a good point. The way that we update the ePaper signs, you know, is with their own dedicated RF transmitters. You know, they’re just little small transmitters that you can literally pop into the ceiling or put in a closet.
And, uh, but the cool thing there is, you know, let’s say you’ve got, on the second floor, you’ve got 80 different desks reserved or, you know, set up for office hoteling. Any of those can be reserved throughout the day. They all have desk signs. Well, those 80 desk signs are gonna pull zero power from that building. However, for that floor, you might have one, and if it’s a really big floor, you might have two. But these one or two RF transmitters, they’re small and they are low-power devices. In fact, they pull so little power that you can just power them over the network cable, you know, with very common PoE switches. So, for 80 devices, you have one thing to plug in, compared to 80 devices pulling power all the time, if you go the more traditional LCD display route.
Derek DeWitt: It’s funny, I’m reminded almost of my childhood, most of which was spent with my mother constantly yelling at us to turn the light off when you leave the room to save electricity. Well, these kind of turn the light off automatically.
Trey Hicks: Yeah. They do, they do. EPaper is just a much more sustainable solution.
You know, we already have billions of IoT devices in the world, so let’s consider IoT devices like an ePaper sign or a desk sign that are more sustainable and are more eco-friendly as we continue to use technology to help employees be more productive and to have a better workplace experience.
Derek DeWitt: Now you said this EPS stuff is really starting to take off in the last couple of years. Is everyone using it just for office hoteling? Are they using EPS signs for other things as well?
Trey Hicks: Yeah, great question. They are using it for all kinds of things. Really, anywhere dynamic information needs to be shown.
Derek, you have likely seen it in the big retailers. Those big retailers are now using ePaper for the very benefits that we’ve been talking about. You know, certainly our focus is on, you know, places where visual communication is happening – for prices in stores, for product labeling and barcodes in warehouses, way beyond the meeting rooms, conference rooms and office signage that Visix is focused on today.
Derek DeWitt: We’ve talked quite a bit about office hoteling, and you also mentioned kind of up at the top, hot desking, which is basically hoteling without the previous reservation. It’s more spur of the moment, on-the-fly stuff.
Now I’ve been told nobody’s doing it. Certainly not in the United States, nobody’s doing hot desking. Is that still the case or is that changing? Are people starting to embrace this kind of more freeform way of reserving desks, spaces, lockers and so on, simply because it’s so easy with the technology?
Trey Hicks: You know, the trend is maybe that’s picking up a lot slower than the trend of booking a workspace for the day. You know, from what we’re seeing, and we have some incredible partners, you know, that we have API integrations with, they provide, you know, the reservation platforms, the booking platforms that our clients are using today to book spaces, and certainly our ePaper signs are what are showing those reservations at the desk.
So, I think the booking initiative is what’s leading and what we see more of is, hot desking is really more of a factor of when your plans change or you forget to book a desk, it’s just kind of the catch-up way to get a desk when you forgot to reserve one. That’s really it.
Derek DeWitt: Right. So, should that occur, it’s not complicated. It’s, oh, I forgot, well, beep, beep, beep, beep. Oh, I’m done.
Trey Hicks: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And our partners in that direction, they make it super easy. You walk up to the desk that you want to grab, you scan the QR code, and literally in 30 seconds you can book that desk. Because when you scan the QR code, the app that opens up on your phone, it knows what workstation you’re at. All you gotta do is say, hey, I need this until 2:00 PM and hit book. I mean, it is so easy.
So, besides giving a physical presence to office hoteling, we want to just make it super simple, you know, not only to find your place, but to check in or to grab a workplace on the fly. Because with ePaper, you walk up to the desk, you don’t need to learn another UI or set of buttons and touches that you need to do to check in or to book the desk on the fly. You just simply scan the QR code. And once again, you’re using the same platform that you always use. You know, finding a desk next to your work buddies, you’re always using the same platform. You don’t have to learn how to use some other little interactive device at the desk.
Derek DeWitt: I rather think that’s what technology should be doing. It’s supposed to make things easier and faster.
Trey Hicks: You know, and that’s the wild thing about ePaper. As we go from talking about broad-use applications – from the conference room, the huddle room, you know, the meeting space, the office placard, the digital nameplate, the warehouse sign. When we go from broad and we zoom in to what we’ve talked about mostly today, and that’s using ePaper signs for office hoteling, because that has so many more endpoints. You know, instead of 20 meeting rooms, we’re talking about, you know, 1200 desks. The Big Three are much more critical as it relates to cost, time, support and usability.
Derek DeWitt: So, to quote Full Metal Jacket, “how about getting with the program? Why don’t you jump on the team and come in for the big win?” In this case, the team is team ePaper and E Ink. If you’re not using them, you really seriously might wanna start thinking about it. It’s gonna save you time, it’s gonna save you money. It’s easier to use. They’ve gotten quite fast. They’re actually getting pretty good with the quality of the definition. Though again, you’re not putting up a painting here, you’re just putting up some basic information. All round; it just makes more sense.
I predict that come five years from now, almost everything is gonna be ePaper because the technology is also improving all the time. Every year we see them get faster, bigger, higher resolution. And so I think we’re gonna really see, pretty soon, it be the only one that makes sense. I think it’s gonna be like VHS, it’s just gonna win.
Trey Hicks: Yeah, I think so. Derek, especially for office hoteling. But I should say not only for office hoteling, but in many areas, it’s just a great technology for communicating information, data, bookings, all that stuff, at many endpoints.
And I would say really pay attention to what we’re doing with ePaper in the coming weeks, because, as you made reference to, they’re gonna see the type of visuals and how we’re displaying information, you know, really kind of go to the next level in the coming weeks, because we have a new four-color technology that we’re gonna take full advantage of as we continue to show how ePaper signs and E Ink signs can be used in many different applications in the workplace and beyond.
Derek DeWitt: Great! That sounds exciting. I can’t wait.
Well, all very interesting stuff. I’d like to thank my guest today, Trey Hicks for talking to me. He is the COO and CSO of Visix. Thanks for walking me down the EPS garden path, Mr. Hicks.
Trey Hicks: Sure, Derek. It was a lot of fun, and I look forward to the next time we catch up.
Derek DeWitt: All right. And of course, I remind everybody that you can read our conversation as well as listen to it on the Visix website under resources and podcasts, and you’ll find some helpful links there as well.