office productivity gear

Mimio Xi White Board Recorder

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By Joel Shore

September 9, 2002

Darn, I slept through class again. Can I borrow your notes?

That wouldn’t happen if the teacher had used a Mimio Xi. This smart device attaches to a white board and records every stroke of those dry-erase markers. Later, you can play the session back on your PC. It’s such a clever idea, I may never have to go to class again—except to take the mid-term and final exams.

Ok, seriously, the Mimio Xi wasn’t intended for such frivolous use. In the real world, the mimio Xi allows business executives, consultants, trainers, and educators to instantly capture, edit and share whiteboard information electronically.

What’s great is that unlike its predecessors, the Mimio Xi is battery powered. That means it doesn’t have to be connected to a PC to operate. Just stick it to a white board, slip the markers into the special plastic sleeves, and you can record up to 10 hours worth of white boarding. Later, you can connect the device to a PC and save the entire presentation. You can distribute it or even post it on a Web site.

If you connect it to an Internet-connected PC, you can broadcast your whiteboard session live, in real time, over the Internet. Connect the PC to a video projector and you can put your presentation on a giant screen. That’s a nice feature when your audience is spread across the country or across a conference room.

Since presentations are recorded as data files, you can keep them forever on a hard disk or CD-ROM. That’s great insurance. If there’s any question about what was decided in a meeting, or what project specifications were agreed to, it’s a breeze to open the file and play back the meeting, stroke by stroke.

The Mimio bar weighs less than two pounds when loaded with batteries. It’s hinged in the middle for easy travel and folds to a mere 9 1⁄4 inches. To attach the bar to a whiteboard, you use two small clear plastic brackets that have double-sided adhesive strips. That’s certainly secure, but it means those brackets have to stay put. If you want to use the Mimio in several locations, you’ll need to stock up on spare mounting brackets. Suction cups would be more convenient, but might not hold to a dusty board.

So how does it work? Ok, so here’s where we get a little technical. First, you attach the Mimio bar vertically to the upper left corner of your white board. Next, you slip each marker into a color-coded plastic sleeve. Each sleeve transmits an ultrasonic signal that’s picked up by the bar. The four sleeves send a slightly different signal, so Mimio knows which color you’re writing with. There’s also an electronic eraser that’s shaped like a hockey puck. It has a felt-covered bottom, so you really do erase with it. Now here’s the magic: As you use the markers and eraser, the Mimio bar receives those ultrasonic signals and records them. It’s elegant in its simplicity.

This “stroke over time” recording method is a lot like taping a TV show on your VCR. You can rewind, fast-forward, and play back everything that was written on the whiteboard.

Built for growth. Key to the Mimio Xi is its upgradeability, through pop-out interchangeable link modules. A USB module comes standard with the device and offers fast downloads of whiteboard notes to a PC, via a USB cable. Additional connectivity modules, such as removable storage and wireless (Bluetooth, WiFi, IrDA) are in the works.

The Mimio Xi software records your whiteboard notes and drawings to a file with a “.ink” file extension. This .ink data can be replayed, integrated into other applications, or exported to a variety of other file formats. With its “self-viewing ink” format capabilities, anyone can receive and replay whiteboard notes, whether or not they have the Mimio software.

Every office should have a Mimio.<