Understanding the Difference Between Legacy & Smart Radios

Everywhere we look, it seems that just about everything is getting ‘smart’. Cellphones transitioned into smartphones, TVs are now smart TVs and even your home can be considered smart with just a few modifications. This jump to smart devices is also making its way to the frontline by introducing the industrial smart radio.

Like a smartphone, smart radios offer more communication capabilities out in the field than a traditional industrial radio. As these advances continue and workers see the need for better, more effective frontline collaboration, we see how outdated legacy radios are.

Smart radios can make a lasting, transformative impact on your whole enterprise. But before you can make that happen, it’s important to understand the differences between legacy and smart industrial radios.

What They Can Do

Since its introduction, push-to-talk (PTT) has been the default, and sometimes the only, option for communicating on a legacy industrial radio. But with smart radios entering industrial facilities, along with the changing needs of the frontline workforce, you can, and should, expect more.

Our walt™ smart radio provides your entire workforce with more communication options in one device.

• PT3 Collaboration combines push-to-talk, push-to-picture and push-to-video
• Automatic language translation and dictation for all major languages
• A global directory of every weavix™ user, making cross-company collaboration simple
• 1-1 and group texting functionality
• Noise cancellation, ambient noise adjustment, unlimited channels and more

Along with communication capabilities, our smart radios also gather and securely store accurate frontline data for you to optimize your workplace. As companies become more reliant on data to enhance productivity and frontline crews need them for reliable communication, smart radios just perform better than that of their legacy counterparts.

Where They Work

One of the biggest issues we see with traditional radios is that they don’t work everywhere you need them to. Industrial facilities aren’t like every other workplace. They’re often widespread, built with heavy steel structures and reinforced buildings throughout. As a result, there are dead zones where legacy radios act more as an accessory than a tool.

No matter where you’re at in your facility, you need to have access to the rest of your crew. While legacy radios have issues with covering your facility, our smart radios don’t. Offering network flexibility and 100% guaranteed coverage of your facility with a private LTE network, smart radios can provide better, more reliable coverage to work anywhere you need them to.

Since our walt™ smart radios are designed to go anywhere your workers go, we’ve also made it easy to manage your radio inventory. With our device management feature, Where’s walt™, you can locate and find your smart radio anywhere within your facility at any time. If you forgot your legacy radio somewhere in the facility, you’re pretty much out of luck.

Who Has Them

Legacy radios are notorious for being expensive, averaging between $700-1200 per device. This high cost prohibits some enterprises from supplying everyone with a radio, simply because it eats up too much budget. Instead, radios are reserved for only certain teams and key positions.

We’ve seen the inefficiencies that stem from having a disconnected workforce, and we aim to improve it. While only about 10% of workers have access to a legacy radio, weavix™ supplies everyone with a free walt™ smart radio. Giving every worker a smart radio creates many benefits for your enterprise, and provides a more complete look of your workplace.

How You Take Care of Them

Routine maintenance not only drains more of your budget, but your time too. Instead of handling important matters for your enterprise, legacy radio providers give you two options: fix them yourself or send them in, with a catch. If you go with the second option, many legacy radio providers now charge you to send them back just to see if they can be fixed, and then charge an additional fee to actually repair them. It’s obvious to us that workers deserve better.

Unique to weavix™, we created a complimentary managed service just for situations like this. weCare™ puts the responsibility of repairing and replacing your smart radios on us. We’ve also included free upgrades with our weCare™ coverage, ensuring your facilities always have functioning, up-to-date models without hassle.

Why Your Enterprise Deserves Smart Radios

walt™ smart radios are the next step in industrial communication and digitizing your industrial workplace. While we aren’t knocking the impact legacy industrial radios have had all these years, it’s time for something more advanced.

As workers continue to demand more communication options that work anywhere in the facility, and executives expect an additional data acquisition component from their technological investments, legacy radios are no longer suitable.

Legacy radios have laid the foundation for smart radios to thrive in today’s industry. With our full collaboration suite, weavix™ aims to equip every worker with the capabilities and tools necessary for enterprises everywhere to succeed. To get started, schedule a demo with a weavix™ specialist today.