Local delivery
Screens on the same network hand signals straight to each other, at the same time as the cloud. When the connection drops, your team keeps signalling and there is nothing for anyone to do.
A resort spa on hotel wifi, or a studio on a consumer router, needs that more than an office does — and is least likely to have anyone on site who can fix it.
Three things an owner can check off.
It runs on the tablets and phones your team already uses. No server in a back room, nothing loaded onto the front desk computer, and no IT visit to schedule.
A group with three properties runs all of them from one account, with one place to manage staff, rooms and channels.
A signal crossing the hall takes the short trip instead of the long one out to a data centre and back. If the connection drops, signalling keeps working.
Both paths, every signal
{{ statusLine }}Said plainly, because it is a trade and not a magic trick.
Keeps working
Waits for the connection
That is the honest shape of it. What your team uses every minute keeps working. What an owner or manager touches a few times a year waits until the connection is back.
There is no step here. That is the whole feature. Screens find each other on the network by themselves — no fixed addresses to assign, no router settings to open, no server to stand up.
Networks do vary, and some configurations stop devices from discovering each other. On a typical spa network it works with no setup at all, and the cloud path carries every signal either way.
Local delivery runs in the AltoSignal app on tablets, phones and desktops. Those are the screens that hand signals to each other directly.
The browser version keeps working everywhere and still needs nothing installed, which is what makes it useful for a spare screen or a quick sign-in. It does not take part in local delivery, so a browser screen receives through the cloud. See which apps run where.
Spas used to have to pick one
Call systems that live entirely inside one building are quick and dependable for exactly that reason. It is also why they cannot reach a second location, why something has to run on site, and why putting one in and keeping it going takes somebody technical.
Signalling that lives in the cloud reaches anywhere and installs nothing. It also stops when the internet does.
AltoSignal does both, from one account. That is the argument for a group.
Questions
Nothing, and there is no step to skip. Devices find each other on the network by themselves: no fixed addresses, no router settings to open, no server in a cupboard, nothing loaded onto a back office PC. Sign in on a screen and it joins in. Networks do vary, and some configurations stop devices from discovering each other; on a typical spa network it works with no setup at all, and the cloud path carries every signal either way.
Not as a blanket statement, and we would rather be exact than flattering. Signalling between screens on the same network keeps working. Signing up, changing your plan and anything that touches your account still needs a connection, because those live in the cloud. What keeps running is the part your team uses every minute.
No, and there is nothing to switch. Both paths carry every signal all the time, so the local one is already carrying it before anything goes wrong. Nothing watches for an outage, nothing fails over, and there is no state for your team to be aware of.
No. Local delivery runs in the AltoSignal app on tablets, phones and desktops, and those are the devices that hand signals to each other directly. The browser version keeps working and still needs nothing installed, which is what makes it useful for a spare screen, but it receives through the cloud.
Both halves apply and they do not fight. Screens inside each building hand signals to each other directly, and the cloud is what carries a signal between one property and another. That is the combination a system living entirely inside one building cannot offer at all.
Thirty days free, on every screen in the spa. Nothing to install on your network and nobody to call.