AC100 Specifications
System Configuration
The Crinia AC100 consists of a Base Station, a Tower, a Handset and a Junction Box. The system is also provided with a portable USB Flash Drive.
- The Base Station is the system’s CPU, it processes all the external connections and is the battery charger for the Tower and the Handset.
- The Tower is the element of the system used for conference calls, includes a high performance speaker and four microphones.
- The Handset is the system’s user interface. It’s also a cordless telephone. All the information is displayed and entered by a touch-screen LCD.
- The Junction Box contains the power supply, mains and Ethernet connections.
- The USB Flash Drive is used to store recorded calls and plugs into the Base Station.
- Retractable cables are supplied for connection to the telephone line and Ethernet.
External Communications Connections
The Crinia AC100 can be connected directly to a telephone line or to any analogue port on a PBX.
For connections to a digital PBX an interface may be required.
The AC100 can also be connected to the Ethernet for use as a VOIP telephone.
Internal Communications
Crinia’s proprietary Wireless Network handles all communications between the various elements of the system, Base Station, Handset and Tower(s). This award winning technology was developed to cope with Crinia’s 16kHz sampling rate (twice of what is used by other conference phones), 2Mps data transmission rate instead of the normal 1Mps, low power consumption and extended operating range.
Acoustics
- Full Duplex Operation
Crinia’s AC100 audio conference system provides full-duplex operation, allowing all the people engaged in a teleconference (those within the conference room and those on the other end of the telephone line) to speak and hear each other simultaneously.
- Adaptive Echo Cancellation
This is a key element in determining the acoustic performance of an audio conference system. Crinia’s AC100 audio conference system automatically adapts to the environment around it, preventing the person speaking at the other end of the phone line from hearing echoes of their voice caused by reverberation in the room with the conference phone. By using the latest in high-power digital signal processors (DSP), Crinia’s voice conference system cancels out reverberation of durations up to 200 milliseconds per microphone. This is around three times longer than any products in the market, resulting in improved speech intelligibility for people who are on the other end of the phone line, particularly when the conference phone is used in larger conference rooms and highly reverberant environments.
- Four Microphones with Beam Forming
Crinia’s AC100 uses four microphones equally spaced around the base of the speaker Tower. The signals from the four microphones are combined using multiple fixed beam formers, each of which listens to sound arriving from a different direction. The AC100 then automatically locks onto the direction of the loudest speech signal and reduces the level of sound arriving from other directions, resulting in lower background noise levels for listeners at the other end of the telephone line.
- High sample rate
Crinia’s AC100 operates at a 16 kHz sampling rate, providing a high bandwidth voice channel for excellent speech clarity and intelligibility. A full 8 kHz signal bandwidth (more than twice that of a typical telephone line) will be available when used with voice-over-IP communications. All other alternative products operate at a much lower sample rate (typically around 7 - 8 kHz), resulting in reduced speech intelligibility.
- Bass-reflex Speaker Enclosure
The speaker driver, cabinet volume and ports have been carefully designed using computer-aided design techniques. This results in natural sounding speech with good bass response from a small speaker driver and enclosure.
Security
Security is an important consideration in wireless communications.
Crinia developed a frequency-hoping scheme for the AC100 that provides users with a very high level of confidence against deliberate and accidental interferences. The communication links between the Base, the Handset and the Towers change frequency randomly every 4 milliseconds over 128 different frequencies making it impossible for somebody outside the system to listen into any conversation.
In addition, once a Tower or Handset are registered by a Base, and this happens the first time the system is activated, they can only be changed to another Base by the factory. This prevents accidental cross talks between different systems in the same building.
Finally, the handset always displays what elements of the system are connected to the Base, preventing two Towers from the same system being used on the same call but in different rooms without user’s knowledge.
Controls and Operation
The Crinia AC100 is designed to provide the best available user’s experience. System status is indicated by the light rings in the Base Station and the Tower and can be identified at a glance.
The touch screen on the handset activates all the controls. This allows an extensive number of menus and functions to be contained in a small and ergonomic package.
The use of the Handset as a wireless telephone provides the Crinia AC100 with a unique capability in the conference phone market, which is that this is the only system where the user can have a private conversation in the middle of a conference call.
As the Handset is effectively a remote control this means that unlike all the other conference phones the user is not subject to the limitation of having to be seating within reach of the telephone.
Recording
The Crinia AC100 is the only telephone system where the user can record the calls onto a portable USB Flash Drive. These recordings can be played back on the AC100 or stored on a computer for future reference or distributed as required.
Batteries
Crinia uses high quality Li-ion batteries on the Tower and the Handset with capacity of up to 72 hours standby and up to 500 recharging cycles without significant loss in performance.
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