Tablet Wireless Scoring Systems
Does anyone have experience of Wireless Scoring Systems that are able to use tablets? We very much like the larger, clearer screens that the tablets are able to offer. I have used BridgePal but only at less serious, friendly clubs. My reservation is whether it is reliable and robust enough for use in a more serious club that hosts competitions and events (we currently use ScoreBridge/BridgeMates). I have seen information on ArcScorer but have never used it. Does anyone have any experience of BridgePal, ArcScorer or indeed any other tablet based scoring system? Any thoughts/information would be much appreciated.
Comments
Have a look at Free BriAn
Alan
Thank you; will do! I have heard of BriAn but didn't realise it was a scoring system. I was only aware of the accounts package.
Speaking as the co-developer of BridgePal (together with my wife Mirna) I obviously can't give you an independent viewpoint. However, I don't think you will find another tablet based scoring system that is more robust/reliable than BridgePal. In fact, that is one of its strongpoints. There are more than 100 clubs using BridgePal (see the user list on our website at bridgepal.co.uk). Roughly 70 of these are english clubs, some of which are EBU affiliated, some not. It works with Scorebridge, EBUScore, or any other scoring program that supports Bridgemate.
As the software is free of charge to download and use there is no risk in adopting BridgePal. If you were to change your mind at a later date you could switch to any of the other android tablet based scoring systems without incurring any further hardware costs.
We currently use BridgeTabs (for about 6 years or so), costs about £6 per year per table. Very intutive user interface.
We tried a number pf cheap tablets and performance was varied. We now exclusively use KindleFire tablets, cheap, robust and the battery life excellent.
We actually have a number of clubs who migrated from BridgeTabs to BridgePal
However, I fell out with them as their supprt is terrible.
To use the system you need an internet vonnection everytime, so it can check their system that we have a licence covering the number of tables needed. Tjis worked fine for about 3 years or so. Then we changed from a mobile broadband dongle, to a wired connection. It stopped working.
Their webpage says that the licence is for that computer only and cannot be transferred. Fine, except that it was the same computer. They refused to help until I complained strongly (we were one of the 1st in the UK, quoted on their site and we have had visitor from all over to check it out). Eventually, they didnt fix the problem but they gave use some additional licence.
I have no idea what they are tying the licence to, I even spoofed the MAC address, to no avail.
That experience left a bitter taste, so I have been on the lookout for an alternative since then.
I will check BridgePal out next time I'm at the club, cheers
With regards to ArcScorer, please email us directly via our website then we can provide you with a free trial of it to test and compare to other systems. It works with ScoreBridge and EBUScore. We have had several clubs switch from BridgeTabs because they prefer our system and have been very complementary of our full support offering which is included such as installing and configuring your computer/scoring software.