That in my opinion is the key. I too have no doubt Mr. Knight has a good product. The key is the device. I don’t have any hard facts but, I do believe not many inspectors use a PDA. Maybe I’m dead wrong? I know I tried it and it actually slowed me down. Not to say I wouldn’t give a smaller than a laptop device another shot. But, it would have to be something that was small and yet not too small where you need to almost squint to look at the screen or the opposite. Too bulky to carry around with you. I tried that setting up in the kitchen thing and going back to type before. It just didn’t suit me. Seemed almost unnatural. Now taking notes or voice recording and lots of pictures seem to work well for me as I’m sure for others. This is all my opinion of course and certainly not based any any scientific data or exhaustive study.
I truly am open to other inspecting methods but, need to as Bob has mentioned many times before see or hear from someone that has been using a PDA and is very happy with it. Up until now, it has been the opposite. I have heard from this BB from several who were using one and switched. I think it isn’t so much the program but, the device.
Depends upon if you have tried both…how do you know that Porterhouse steak is better then Alpo dog food ? Have you tried both ? and if the steak is burnt beyond recognition the dog food may actually taste better !! :mrgreen:
Thats a nice phone Bob. I have the pearl and the dash from T-Mobile. I’m thinking about the new one by RIM that is almost ready to come out, I believe it is the 9000 model. I need to see the price when it comes out though.
Bob, I have the BB pearl which I gave to my son. I have the T-mobile Dash which I currently use and the Nextel 7520. I was thinking of looking into the new model for RIM which I believe is not out here yet. The 9000. The curve looks good. I know they say they improved the photo quality over the pearl. Good luck.
I am at the state convention with Rick Maday right now and using my Curve as a tether.
No other vender is able to get a connection, though Rick is able to get a weak wifi signal.
We are here representing Home Inspection Pro software and people seem to love it.
Rick is concentrating on the Web hosting.
Check out InspectMate. http://www.knightssoftware.com/ It was written in Microsoft Access, so it is a database program. It is customizable. I’ve been using it for about 3 years and for the previous 10 had used printed reports that I made myself. I bought 3D and played with it for about a week and did not find it very friendly. No matter what you are using now, you can customize InspectMate to duplicate your hand written report. I use an HP 210 handheld (although the software comes in a PC version too). I like the portability of the handheld in an attic or crawlspace. I don’t have to remember everything and then write it down when I get back to the kitchen or wherever you leave the laptop. My guys did not even want to change to a computerized format, but it took a week before they said they would never go back.
You are not wrong. PDAs slow the inspection process for the majority of inspectors. We get a lot of requests from new inspectors for PDA based report software. We used to have PDA based software but discontinued it six or seven years ago because PDAs do not work for most inspectors.
We do a lot of research at MSI. We base business decisions not on what we think but what our inspectors, customers and potential customers tell us. We conducted several studies and learned that 80% of inspectors who have used a PDA to do inspections abandoned the devices within six months. It did not matter whose software they were using or which PDA they were using.
We discontinued our PDA based reports and ceased work on development of new PDA based report software. In the years since, we have done follow-up studies and the results have been the same.
There is a market for PDA based inspection report software though. Even with the extraordinarily high drop-out rate, more than 50% of all new inspectors and inspectors who have never used a PDA believe that a PDA will make them more efficient.
However, they do work for some inspectors. 20% of inspectors who try a PDA will continue using them. Some continue with the PDAs because they really do work well for some inspectors. However, some inspectors continue with PDAs for the wrong reasons. I have often heard comments such as “I can’t afford to change because I put so much time and money into trying to make this work”. To those Inspectors, my advice is not to throw good money after bad. Cut your losses and move on.
In the course of doing our studies, we also identified some interesting social and personality traits among the inspectors who most dislike and those who most like using PDAs. It usually doesn’t take long to figure out which inspectors will ultimately be successful with a PDA and which will not.
I can probably answer that question for everyone since we have been doing this for over 10 years in the home inspection industry and have seen and talked to literally thousands of home inspectors across the US and Canada and every type of home inspector under the sun. I know from personal experience that the thousands of inspectors that have used our software over the years on various types of handheld devices from the original Apple Newtons, thru the Hitachi and Fujitsu CE tablet devices to the current Windows PDA devices and the future Apple iPhone versions we may have, that it has a lot to do with how comfortable the inspector is with CHANGE and whether they really want to embrace the CHANGE or not.
This is not the only reason that some home inspectors are successful with using a handheld type of device and while others may abandon it. The second reason is I truly beleive they are using software that was poorly developed for use on a handheld device. A lot of the handheld software out there is companion software for a PC version of the same software. What happens in this case is the software developer attempts to use the same interface they used on the PC and applies to the handheld device. This usually menas squeezing a lot of items onto a tiny screen and it does not become very user-friendly. The software on the PC usually was software meant to be used AFTER the inspection and not designed to be used DURING the inspection.
Thirdly…the inspector needs to spend time to customize their set of comments and template to how THEY do their inspection. This takes time and patience and some inspectors do not make the time to do this so that when they are out in the field the data collection process goes smoothly.
Fourthly…they need to embrace technology and not be afraid of it. If they hate computers already they are probably going to hate bringing them with in the field while they are doing an inspection. They need to understand that a handheld computer can be MUCH easier to deal with then the HUGELY complicated Windows machine they have at their office.
I will add that I know our customer base and we have less then 5% of our current clients move off our software and go back to what they were doing before (using paper forms, reentering back at the office, using a laptop in the field)…but we do have our competitors clients come to us when they struggle with the interface of their current PDA software or their current software solution.
I’d be more then happy to share with Mr. Wells a list of our client base so he can UPDATE his study of inspectors so he knows all the FACTS. Over a thousand home inspectors over the last 10 years doing literally over a thousand inspections EVERY DAY with our software is proof enough for me that handhelds can work for home inspectors. I am not saying for everyone but I believe a majority of them. 10 years ago the top 2 inspection software companies said that handhelds were a fad and would never go anywhere…now both of those companies have PDA solutions…hmmm.
