Comparison
The Room Display
vs Joan
iPad app at $99 once vs e-paper panels with subscriptions. Where Joan genuinely wins, where The Room Display wins, and the 5-year cost math.
Short answer: Joan wins on battery-powered wireless e-paper hardware and enterprise extras (analytics, visitor management, Fortune 500 references). The Room Display wins on total cost — $99 once per iPad vs ongoing hardware + subscription — setup speed, and using devices you already own. For 2–20 rooms, the cost difference is hard to argue with; for 200 rooms with a facilities team, Joan's ecosystem earns its price.
We make The Room Display, so this comparison has a bias. We've tried to keep the facts checkable and to say plainly where Joan is better.
Where Joan genuinely wins
- E-paper hardware. Battery-powered, wireless, three-month battery life, mounts anywhere including glass with no cable run. It's elegant engineering and nobody should pretend otherwise.
- Ecosystem breadth. Desk booking, visitor management, digital signage, occupancy analytics — one vendor for the whole workplace stack.
- Enterprise credentials. Crestron certification, reseller channels, SLAs, and design awards. Procurement departments relax around Joan.
Where The Room Display wins
- Pricing model. $99 per iPad, once. Joan's costs stack: device hardware, then a subscription priced per device and tier, with branding and analytics in higher tiers. Over five years a 10-room Joan deployment typically costs thousands; ours costs $990 plus mounts.
- Hardware you control. Any iPad from 2017 onward. Spares are whatever's in the drawer. Resale value if you ever change course. No proprietary device to brick or recycle.
- Setup time. Cloud config + permissions + iPad setup ≈ 10 minutes per organization. No Wi-Fi provisioning of e-paper devices, a known friction point.
- A real touchscreen. Booking on a responsive LCD beats e-paper refresh latency for interaction (e-paper wins for glanceability in bright light — fair's fair).
Feature table
| The Room Display | Joan | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | $99/device one-time | Hardware + subscription/device |
| Hardware | Your iPads (2017+) | Proprietary e-paper |
| Power | Wired (one-time install) | Battery (recharge every ~3 months) |
| Google Workspace | ✓ | ✓ |
| Microsoft 365 | ✓ | ✓ |
| Auth | OAuth 2.0 / Service Account | Vendor-managed |
| Analytics dashboards | — | ✓ (tiered) |
| Desk booking / visitors | — | ✓ (add-ons) |
| Offline behaviour | Reconnects on Wi-Fi | Reconnects on Wi-Fi |
| Best at | 2–20 rooms, cost-sensitive | Enterprise estates |
The five-year math (10 rooms)
- The Room Display: 10 × $99 + mounts/cables (~$1,000) = ≈ $2,000 total, assuming existing iPads
- Joan: 10 devices of hardware + 60 months of per-device subscription = typically $8,000–$20,000+ depending on tier
The gap isn't subtle. The question is whether analytics, sensors, and the broader ecosystem are worth it for your size. At 200 rooms, maybe. At 8 rooms, you're buying a dashboard nobody opens.
FAQ
Can I switch from Joan to The Room Display? Yes — both read the same Google/Microsoft room calendars. Your bookings live in your calendar, not in either vendor's system. Mount iPads, configure, unsubscribe.
Does The Room Display do desk booking? No. We deliberately do one thing. If you need a full workplace platform, Joan or Robin fit better.
Is e-paper or LCD better for always-on display? E-paper sips power and reads in direct sun; LCD is faster to interact with and far cheaper per screen. For indoor hallways, both are perfectly readable.
Evaluating both? Forward this to your IT lead with the five-year math highlighted — that's usually where the decision actually gets made.