By now we have all experienced the effects of supply chain challenges on a very personal level. All AV manufacturers have had to make careful decisions to best serve the needs of our customers. Over the last several years, our Q-SYS supply chain and engineering teams have worked to mitigate component shortages, find alternate suppliers, and completely redesign products, all the while maintaining transparency with you and your customers.
Despite the constraints of the pandemic, we launched over 20 new Q-SYS Products (new processors, I/O devices, PoE loudspeakers, touchscreens, and collaboration cameras). And, when it became clear our customers were in dire need of more processors, we quickly increased production on the Core Nano processors by four times to keep your projects going.
New Challenges, New Solutions
Recently, Q-SYS was informed by one of our component suppliers that it would no longer supply one of the components used to manufacture the Core 110f processor and Core 8 Flex. After an exhaustive search to find an alternate source, we decided to make smaller functional changes to the product while giving you a path through our Platform and Ecosystem to achieve the same functionality, rather than pausing production for lengthy redesigns.
We chose you, our customers, and your ability to keep your projects moving with Q-SYS today and well into the future.
Effective with the upcoming Core 110f v2, we have made the following changes:
- Back panel: removed 16 x 16 GPIO ports
- Front panel: replaced OLED display and 2x USB Type A ports with a simplified, functionally similar solution
Our research has shown integrators prefer to use the four REAR Type A ports on the Core 110f for HID routing and external USB audio device I/O, therefore, we don’t anticipate this will heavily impact designs. Furthermore, the USB Type B port featuring the Q-SYS USB AV Bridging suite is unaffected. Lastly, all the information (and much more) that was displayed on the front panel OLED display is still readily available in Q-SYS Core Manager and Q-SYS Reflect Enterprise Manager. The new simplified front panel maintains the most critical functions of power indication and ability to remotely identify the Core.
Q-SYS Platform & Ecosystem Flexibility Gives You Options
We know these changes on the Core 110f will affect certain system designs. However, because the Q-SYS Platform has been thoughtfully engineered with such extreme versatility, you can still achieve a similar Core 110f functional outcome natively from within the Platform, or with certified Ecosystem partner products.
To make this path easy for you, we put together a document to help you pair the more widely available Core Nano with a multitude of native Q-SYS I/O and third-party device options to achieve the same goal as the Core 110f / Core 8 Flex.
We Are In This Together
We are dedicated to working with you to ensure you can deliver a robust, flexible, and scalable audio, video & control system to your customers. If you have any additional questions or need some design help, please reach out to your Q-SYS regional sales team member.