Vivitek NovoConnect Deployment Manual
Network Deployment Guide for NovoConnect
Network Deployment Guide for NovoConnect Devices
NovoConnect is a wireless presentation and collaboration system designed to support highly
interactive and collaborative meetings or classroom learning activities. Meeting participants,
instructors, teachers and students can interact and share digital content via their PCs, tablets,
Chromebooks and smartphones — a true BYOD device. These include the NovoCast, NovoPro,
and NovoEnterprise. For simplicity’s sake, the diagrams and examples shown are for the NovoPro
device.
To fully take advantage of NovoConnect’s capabilities, it should be properly deployed in a school
or a corporate network. Some aspects should be carefully considered and planned, for example,
Wi-Fi interference and channel selection, intranet firewall, Bonjour protocol support across
different subnets/VLANs, Quality of Service and device management. In this whitepaper, we are
going to illustrate these points one by one to facilitate a successful NovoConnect deployment in
your network.
1. Network Connection
NovoConnect has three network connection types, Ethernet, Wi-Fi Client, and Wi-Fi Hotspot.
A) Ethernet – NovoConnect can be plugged into your Ethernet via its RJ45 port. Namely,
you can connect NovoConnect to your organization’s backbone network. It is
recommended to use an Ethernet connection (when possible) since it gives you better
robustness and higher performance.
B) Wi-Fi – NovoConnect’s built-in 802.11ac Wi-Fi operates at dual bands (2.4/5GHz).
With its 2T2R antenna, it can achieve a maximum bandwidth of 300Mbps1 (NovoCast
currently only support 2.4GHz and has a 1T1R antenna). This high-performance Wi-Fi
module can operate in two modes.
a) Client Mode – NovoConnect can be connected to your organization’s Wi-Fi
network via its built-in Wi-Fi module.
b) Hotspot Mode – NovoConnect can creates its own Wi-Fi network, allowing
users to connect their mobile devices to this ad hoc network.
The following table summarizes their feature differences and typical usage.
1
300Mbps is the maximum value while the actual bandwidth may vary depending on operating environment.
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Ethernet/Wi-Fi Client
Mode
Wi-Fi Hotspot Mode
Number of Users Allowed 64 (8 for NovoCast) 8
Internet/Intranet Access Yes By default no, but can
enable this feature by
enabling LAN-Wi-Fi
Hotspot routing)
Typical Usage Pre-configured for School or
Corporation
Quick setup for smallgroup meetings
It is worth mentioning that Ethernet and Wi-Fi connections can coexist on NovoConnect devices.
Namely, you can configure NovoConnect devices in Ethernet and Wi-Fi Client mode, or in
Ethernet and Wi-Fi Hotspot mode.
1.1. Ethernet
The following homescreen shows the NovoConnect device is in Ethernet mode, where its
Ethernet IP Address is highlighted in red.
When connecting to a wired network, NovoConnect devices support both DHCP and Static IP
connection types.
DHCP: NovoConnect device obtains its IP address from the DHCP server on the network.
Static IP: NovoConnect device is assigned a fixed IP address manually.
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“DHCP” is the default connection type. However, “Static IP” might be more preferable as it makes
remote management much easier.
The following diagram illustrates how to select one of these two connection types. (Settings
General Settings Ethernet Ethernet Configuration).
To set up “Static IP” properly, you
need to have the following
information, as shown in the diagram
on the right.
An unallocated IP address;
Netmask;
DNS address;
Gateway address.
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2
1.2. Wi-Fi Client Mode
In this mode, the NovoConnect device functions as a client to join an existing Wi-Fi network. As
illustrated in the following diagram, to set up the Wi-Fi connection, on the NovoConnect device
homescreen, click on Wi-Fi Connect to Wi-Fi Configure Wi-Fi (ON). Then select the
desired Wi-Fi SSID (the name associated with the Wi-Fi network) and enter the proper credentials
when necessary.
You may notice that you have the choice of using “DHCP” or “Static IP” in the connection dialog,
which is exactly the same as an Ethernet connection.
Logging into a Wi-Fi Network via Captive Portal: Some Wi-Fi networks are equipped with a
captive portal, which requires users to log in via a web browser before they can access the
Internet. When a NovoConnect device is connected to this type of network, users can follow
the following steps:
A. Follow the above configuration steps to connect to the organization’s Wi-Fi network;
B. After the Wi-Fi is connected, click on “Browser” on the home screen (see the picture
below);
C. Open this web browser and you will be prompted for login credentials.
D. Enter the proper username and password, and you will be connected to the network;
E. Click “Return Back” on the homescreen to return to the NovoConnect device’s App main
interface.
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Logging into a Wi-Fi Network with 802.1x Authentication:
When you connect to a Wi-Fi network with 802.1x
authentication (for example, radius server), you will need to
enter the following fields to set up the connection properly:
Network SSID Your network
Security 802.1x Enterprise
Choose the correct settings for
o EAP method
o Phase 2 authentication
Identity Your username (such as
DOMAIN\John.Smith )
Password Your password
Click on button “Connect” to start the connection.
1.3. Wi-Fi Hotspot Mode
A newly unpacked NovoConnect device starts up in Wi-Fi Hotspot mode, where you can start
using it without any entanglement with the network setup. The default SSID for this Wi-Fi Hotspot
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Hotspot AP
SSID
is “NVC_XXXXX” (for example, “NVC_4DF8F” in the following screenshot), where “XXXXX” is a
device-generated text string.
Hotspot AP IP address
One can also configure Hotspot’s RF channel and its routing behavior with LAN. As shown in
the figure below,
You can change the RF channel to avoid unnecessary radio interference, as explained in
Section 1.4.
“Enabling LAN-Wi-Fi-Hotspot routing” gives you the option to either keep LAN and Wi-Fi
Hotspot completely isolated, or, allow Wi-Fi Hotspot to piggyback to the LAN for
Internet access.
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