Mio Prestige - Labels, button travel, and more...lack of product testing?

Yay! Our latest order of Mio Prestige keypads finally came with the labels that have been promised for months. Unfortunately, they are all cut too small (and square, not the rectangular shape of the area the label is supposed to fit in), so you have to fiddle with them to get them exactly centered and level in the button. If you don't, the label gets crooked or off to one side and looks really bad. Label 20-30 of these keypads like this and you'll get tired of it pretty quickly.

<RANT>
Why couldn't AMX have cut these to fit the opening provided by the button? I don't know, but even with a perfect sized label these keypads can be tricky. In our experience, we have found that the travel of the actual button mounted on the IC board is very small. If you are not careful to really tightly press each button together after inserting the label, or if you use your own printed labels with paper stock that is a little too thick, the button will stick or lose its 'click' once re-installed. This is -before- you even mount the keypad to the wall. Don't get me started about the poor wall-mounting design, despite the improved sturdier backing mount AMX have switched to recently.

We found that sometimes we needed to actually shim the plastic frame that holds the buttons with a small piece of paper, so that we could maintain the usability of the buttons. Without the
shim, the buttons would stick on or have no tactile response. I'm hoping that something may have changed with this most recent order of keypads, but from looking at the IC board, it would appear that AMX is still using the same low-travel buttons on the board.

I'm really glad to not have to cut out button labels with an exacto knife any more, but couldn't AMX have done better?

It's like they never bothered to label and install even one of these keypads in the -real world-, before putting them on the market. "Yep, it works great under our perfect lab conditions with our laser cut carpentry demo walls and ideal circumstances. Send it to production!"

Unfortunately, I would say the same about many of the products AMX has made these past few years - wall docking stations that whine, grind, and jam, touch panel trim rings that don't cover even slightly imperfect carpentry (like 1/8" tolerances), ridiculously difficult to open battery covers on modero viewpoints, IR emitters twisted and wrapped up tighter than Houdini in a locked chest under 30' of water, even the new Mio Remotes as nice as they are (ever upgrade one from regular to rechargable? What a hassle!) - and hope to goodness your significant other doesn't throw one at you during an argument - those corners are SHARP!
</RANT>
Anyway, I hate to sound like I am just complaining. AMX has done a great job on many things, but when something isn't right and you just keep dealing with the same issues over and over again over a number of years, it begins to get old.

Eric Keppel
AMX Programmer
MHS Technologies
Newland, NC