I often get asked if a kiosk should be left on all the time or turned off daily. My short answer is “turn it off.” But understanding the reasoning behind this answer could serve helpful to exhibit managers and designers.
Well, the most obvious reason for turning your touch screen or electronic kiosks off is to conserve electricity. Why waste the money and energy powering a computer, monitor, and other peripherals when they are not being used. Some might say that it’s just too time consuming to close the programs and shut down, then start the computer and software the next morning. We have found, while using all different operating systems, that shutting down our kiosk computers with a simple power down does not cause any problems with the systems. I know it goes against what you’ve been taught about computers, but for kiosk computers, dedicated to this one task, it should not be a problem. As far as the start up, a properly set up kiosk computer will automatically start up all required software upon power up.
Another good reason to turn off your kiosk computers is to clear out the random access memory (RAM). For inexperienced programmers, it is pretty easy to develop a software program that will gradually fill all of the system’s RAM. This is often called a memory leak. This happens most often when several programs run on a single machine and some kind of menu program opens programs that are not properly closed causing multiple “copies” of the program to run in memory. A single program can do the same thing with processes that are not cleared when completed. When your RAM is filled, your system will stop responding. Shutting down the computer will clear the memory completely so you can start fresh when restarted.
If you are using an LCD screen (or multiple LCD screens), you also want to give that piece of equipment a rest. Although LCD displays do not burn, they do have a memory (See our previous blog entry on LCD vs. Plasma). If your kiosk software displays static screens for long periods of time, your LCD will remember that image and you will see a ghosted image. Simply turning off the LCD will give the liquid crystals an opportunity to reset, removing the ghosted image.
Even though all of our point2explore kiosk systems are completely tested for memory leaks and set up to minimize screen burn or memory, we highly recommend turning off kiosk computer hardware when not in use. At a minimum, it’s good for the computer and it’s good for your pocketbook.
If you have any questions or comments on turning exhibit kiosks off, please take a moment to post a comment here by clicking the “Comments” link below. We’d love to hear from you!!
Chris Meyer
President
CD Meyer, Inc./point2explore
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