Demos vs. Free Trials

Demos vs. Free Trials

For those of you who have been part of the Lithos circle for more than a few years, you probably remember the two-week free trial we used to offer for our digital radio product. While we did go around the country showing people how the digital radio worked, installing it on Remotec robots, and walking everyone through a test drive, we normally sent the radio to agencies and let them test it out themselves. Why? And why don’t we do that with all of our products?

Robot control systems are pretty simple, really. You slide the receiver into the ONLY place it fits on your robot, plug it in and turn it on. The antenna cable plugs into your Andros control panel and then the antenna itself goes on top of the EOD truck or even on top of the Pelican case the antenna was shipped in. Now you drive your robot. There’s no learning curve. It’s plug-and-play and there are no new skills to develop to operate it. Most of the agencies who tried it loved it and purchased it. There really was no “selling” involved.

Our newer products—notably the CommandLink family of products—take a little more explanation. With eight varieties of CommandLink, it is not inherently obvious which is right for you. We have a link on our website that will actually walk you through the decision process for picking out a CommandLink that’s right for you, but some people just want to see it all in person. So we travel.

Whenever we show the CommandLink, we start with the Overwatch system. It has all the bells and whistles that any special ops team would want. There’s something in it for SWAT, EOD, and negotiators—and it all ties together nicely for use with incident command setups. Overwatch provides the most bang for the buck in part because it can be used for ANY situation with ANY type of special team. GPS tracking of all iOS assets on scene is useful for SWAT. Satellite mapping of the site is great for any special team. The whiteboard feature is ideal for SWAT team planning and intel sharing. Take a picture and share it with everyone on scene. Pull a photo off your mug shot system and share that, too. Text info can be transmitted the same way. And everything is time and date stamped for later use.

Except for the Audio iLite, all the CommandLink systems allow the sharing of video and audio. When we show the Overwatch system, it’s very easy to explain that one or two video systems can be shared over the system with full military encryption via a password protected iOS app (soon to be ported into Android). Same system, just a few less bells and whistles. And that’s okay, because some teams don’t need all the bells and whistles. Sometimes, just a bell will do. Or a whistle.

Negotiators like to share their throw phone video with commanders on-scene. But, what if you don’t have a video-enabled throw phone? That is the unique niche of the iLite Audio product. It’s designed to be used with audio throw phone systems like the Rescue Phone, with whom we often do demos at trade shows. It’s an easy and inexpensive way to share audio.

When we show you our stuff at your office or in your training facility, we like to tell you what each level will do for you. We’ll talk to you, learn how you work, and suggest the best fit. Believe it or not, the best choice isn’t always the top-of-the-line product. For a bomb squad with one robot that rarely does callouts with SWAT or negotiators, it’s overkill to buy Overwatch. If you have a limited budget, there’s no good reason to get NOTHING when the lower end products in the CommandLink line can dramatically improve your agency’s capabilities.

What also comes through in the demo is that your agency can improve its capabilities in just a few moments. Literally. CommandLink is that fast to set up. We set up the entire system from scratch in about ten minutes. The installed units can be ready to run in about three minutes. The software is intuitive, too. Most officers—even those who are not tech savvy—will pick up the iOS devices we bring with us and are navigating through the system in just minutes.

With the marketing team on hand, any questions can be answered right away. And there are always questions. We love it when we see the wheels turning as SWAT officers and EOD techs figure out what the system can do and how it can inform and augment their operational systems. Some make suggestions, some test things out on-scene. Others call their bosses and request they come to see what we have right away!

We will still do a trial demo of the radio system, but we want to see you in person when you see what the CommandLink system does. It’s a little like Christmas morning. It’s that amazing a product…and it’s fun to watch a bunch of cops look like kids opening really cool presents!