All posts by Steve Bliesner

Breeze Booth, Breeze Hub

Breeze Hub Part 1

What is Breeze Hub?

Breeze Hub is a simple (but powerful) utility, that can manage the process of printing, emailing and the SMS* of images from other Breeze software products such as: Breeze Booth for iPad, Breeze Booth for Windows (DSLR Remote Pro) and Breeze Kiosk.

*SMS is designed for sending images via a microsite and does not currently send the actual image.

Breeze Hub, showing 2 iPads connected over a local network, and several emails that have been sent.

Where it started

Hub was initially developed as a print server app, to enable the printing of images from Breeze iPad based photo booths to professional dye sub printers. Additionally, it was designed as a way to easily sync images back to a Windows PC across a local network from your iPad.

Since then, the capabilities of Hub have expanded, and it can now also be used to email and SMS* images from Breeze Booth for Windows (DSLR Remote Pro), Breeze Kiosk and of course, Breeze Booth for iPad.

Breeze Booth for iPad

Breeze Booth for iPad + Breeze Hub

If you are using Breeze Booth for iPad and you want to print at your event, Hub is the fastest and best way to do so. Hub can run on a small, low powered Windows PC, that connects to your printer via USB. The iPad then connects to Hub over WIFI, and quickly sends the images to be printed.  At the same time, Hub can also share your images via email and SMS.

Breeze Booth for Windows (Aka DSLR Remote Pro)

Breeze Booth for Windows running Breeze Hub

If you send emails from Breeze Booth for Windows (DSLR Remote Pro), Hub can run on the same PC, which then allows you to send emails in the background (no waiting for images to upload before next session starts) AND it allows you to attach all images, layouts and GIFs from each session as well as designing more attractive email templates, that can include the thumbnail images.

To get started, configure your emails in Breeze Booth as normal, ensuring that you have enabled XML logging. You can then configure your attachment settings to suit your needs (see GIF below).

Configure the email settings in Breeze Booth for Windows, ensuring that XML logging is enabled. Keep in mind, Breeze Booth requires SMTP settings to be entered, but these will be ignored, as the email will be sent from Breeze Hub instead.
Configure Breeze Hub to enable emails, ensuring you have entered your SMTP details.

When designing your email template, if you are using thumbnails in the body of the email, you need to ensure that you are using the relevant tags to display the images:

  • {image1} – the thumbnail of the print layout or GIF/mp4
  • {image2} {image4} {image6} etc – the thumbnail of the first, second and third photos in the session
  • {image3}{image5}{image7} – the high-resolution image of the first, second and third  photos in the session (though typically, you would not embed the high resolution images in the email body)
Send emails from Breeze Booth for Windows that attach all images and GIFs/mp4’s from the photo booth session

Where do you install it?

Breeze Hub can be run locally on a PC at your event (for example, on your photo booth/kiosk PC, or on the PC acting as your print server); OR it can be run on a PC in your office, where images from multiple Windows/iPad based Breeze photo booths and Kiosks, can be emailed or sent via SMS* from one central location – essentially creating your own mini cloud solution.

Where can I download Breeze Hub?

You can download Breeze Hub here

There is detailed help here.  Do also post in the user group with any questions.

In Part 2, we’ll post some examples and more detailed instructions on how to use Breeze Hub.

Breeze Booth Event Editor, Breeze Booth for iPad, Breeze Hub

Breeze Booth for iPad – What can it do?

Complete creative freedom

Breeze Booth for iPad is a powerful photo booth app that has been designed with flexibility, redundancy and creativity in mind. Design unique, custom interfaces/user experiences and quickly deploy them to a fleet of iPads using trusted cloud services (Dropbox, iCloud etc) or via your own private and secure web servers.

Click video above to see Breeze Booth for iPad in action

Key Features 

  • Centralised set up of events, interfaces and image branding via a Windows-based app
  • The industry’s most flexible interface designer
  • Make digital photos, prints and GIFs and use digital A/R props
  • White label the app interface and sharing features (as a standard inclusion)
  • Standalone capability and redundancy  (events can run offline, deploy your own private and secure sync and image sharing servers)
  • Advanced features for power users (profiles, tokens, unique ID’s, keyboard shortcuts, access to XML information etc)

Breeze Booth Standalone Operation

Breee Booth can run as a simple photo booth app, with loads of  features available out of the box.

  1. Shoot still images, slideshow and boomerang/burst GIFs
  2. Virtual props
  3. Standard image filters and effects: Color, B&W, sepia, comic and mirror effects
  4. Create and import  your own custom photo filters
  5. Control camera settings (digital zoom, ISO, shutter speed, white balance, tint) 
  6. Switch between front and rear cameras
  7. Printing of images (including AirPrint printers)
  8. Email images directly from the iPad
  9. Local storage of photos, prints and GIFs on the iPad
  10. Sync images & XML data to Windows PC for sharing, printing and export to other Apps 
  11. Sync images to Dropbox
  12. Log email addresses and cell phone numbers
  13. Collect guest survey and consent data
  14. Display privacy statements, terms & conditions, and other information screens
  15. Sync events from Dropbox or your own private and secure web server
  16. Transfer events to your iPad via AirDrop (no internet required)
  17. Password protect events and App settings
  18. Run events without an Internet connection
  19. Retain complete control of images and guest data

Breeze Booth + Breeze Hub at your event

Extend the power of Breeze Booth and add Breeze Hub to the mix. Breeze Hub is a small but powerful Windows companion app that can be run at your event, to allow for single or multiple Breeze Booth iPads to print to any Windows printer. In addition, it can also share images via email and SMS without having to use external cloud services. All done locally at your event.

  1. Print to any Windows printer (including professional dye sub printers)
  2. Offline sharing of photos, animated GIFs, and MP4 files
  3. Support sharing from multiple iPads, DLSR based booths and Kiosks with a single Internet connection at your event
  4. Monitor local iPads & display current status and images taken
  5. Share event name and other event data with local iPads

Breeze Booth + Breeze Hub + Event Editor at your office

For power users, centrally manage the syncing of multiple events, and sharing of images from your office, home or secure web server. With Breeze Hub and Event Editor, you can completely control how data is shared to your iPads and how images are sent to your guests; allowing you to create a redundant, secure and private system.

  1. Create, adapt and update events for use worldwide from your PC
  2. Design screens, prints, GIFs and email content for multiple events
  3. Sync new & updated events through your own private and secure webserver
  4. Sync new & updated events with iPads via Dropbox
  5. Centrally share images from multiple events, iPad and DLSR based booths and kiosks from your own office or server. 
  6. Run external commands on images as they are received

Creative Outputs

  • Prints with custom background, overlay, captions graphics and logos
  • Change text on prints locally/on the iPad
  • Slideshow GIFs ( with animated overlays, backgrounds and titles)
  • Boomerang/burst GIFs (also with animated overlays, backgrounds and titles)
  • Share images by email and text (sharing by text requires microsite)

Industry standard image formats are suitable for sharing with other devices and programs, and uploading to the cloud

Applications

  • Social events
  • Corporate activations
  • 360 degree rotating and slider systems
  • Slider systems
  • Fixed installations
  • Trade shows and conventions
  • Unattended booth in a box rental
  • Large multi-location events with unlimited number of iPads
  • White label events

Additional features include 

Screens

  • animate screens and count down with animated GIFs
  • create menu driven interfaces
  • design for 4:3 and iPad Pro 11 
  • drag and drop screen editor
  • pre-designed interfaces
  • interface and captions in any language
  • configurable optional and mandatory surveys
  • design for both landscape and portrait-oriented iPads

Print Layout Editor

  • drag and drop layout editor
  • add custom background, overlay, captions and logos 
  • add jpg or png logos to prints
  • multiple captions 
  • Captions can include date, event and other tokens
  • Design for multiple print sizes and dpi

Prints

  • Print strips, landscape, portrait, square, panorama and other designs
  • supports high speed professional printers
  • Supports any printer with full Windows drivers for Windows 10, 8 or 7 (using Hub)
  • AirPrint directly from iPad

Animated GIFs

  • create simple multi photo gifs from your photo session
  • print high quality images from your gif
  • make short boomerang / burst gifs
  • apply animated overlays and backgrounds
  • optional sharing as MP4 movie

Sharing by email and text

  • Online and offline sharing of photos, animated GIFs and MP4s
  • Email address and cell phone logging 
  • Email directly from iPad
  • Share via Breeze Hub
  • White label html emails 
  • Customise email ‘From’ address, subject and content
  • Automate customisation using event, date, media type and other Breeze tokens
  • SMS texting to both Apple and Android cell phones

User Privacy

  • Custom consent and privacy notice support
  • Rejected images deleted automatically 
  • Photos saved to different folders by privacy options/answers to survey questions
  • Control location of saved images

Advanced Features

  • Menus
  • Breeze profiles 
  • Breeze tokens
  • Random* filename generation {UID}enhances guest privacy (virtually impossible to guess filename)
  • Access data from external applications via XML
  • Interfaces & captions in any language, international character sets
  • Control App with external buttons, motion sensors, USB HIB etc
  • Include tokens in update server URL/Dropbox path

*Filenames generated are guaranteed to be unique for at least 2 years on that iPad

Try Breeze Booth for iPad yourself

Images courtesy of PhotoBoothGuys

© Breeze Systems 2018