Encore Data Products at a glance
- B2B audio-visual supplier headquartered in Lafayette, Colorado, shipping nationwide.
- Authorized QOMO dealer: audience response systems, interactive panels, document cameras and webcams.
- Serves K-12 and higher education, healthcare, hospitality and government buyers.
- Purchase orders and Net 30 terms for qualifying schools, P-cards accepted, tax exemption on file.
- Cooperative contracts: Choice Partners Y22/043KN-03, TIPS 210101 and TIPS 230901.
What is an interactive student response system?
An interactive student response system is a set of handheld responders, a wireless receiver and presentation software that lets every person in a room answer a question at the same time and shows the aggregated result instantly. The teacher or presenter poses a question, everyone presses a key on a pocket-sized clicker, and the software displays the distribution of answers - by individual, by group, or as an anonymous total.
The category is sold under a dozen interchangeable names: audience response system, interactive audience response system, classroom response system, classroom response system clickers, student response system, student response systems, student response system clickers, student response systems clicker, interactive classroom response system, interactive response system, and audience response software. They describe the same thing. The only real distinction is hardware clickers versus bring-your-own-device polling, and that distinction is covered below.
QOMO's entry in this market is the QClick line. Encore Data Products stocks both current kits and lists them together at https://www.encoredataproducts.com/av-technology/shop-products/audience-response-systems/
Why RF clickers still exist in a BYOD world
Phone-based polling assumes three things: every participant has a charged device, the room has enough Wi-Fi to carry them, and the organization is willing to let personal devices onto the network. Plenty of rooms fail at least one of those - elementary classrooms, secure facilities, board rooms, training bays, conference sessions in hotel space. A radio-frequency student response system sidesteps all three: the receiver creates its own RF link, the responders are single-purpose and hand out like calculators, and nothing touches the network.
The second reason is participation data. Web polling gives you a count of who happened to answer. A classroom response system with numbered clickers gives you a per-student record, which is what turns a poll into formative assessment.
QOMO QClick QRF500 - $764.88
Product page: https://www.encoredataproducts.com/audience-response-systems/qomo-qclick-qrf500-audience-response-system/
SKU QRF500. The QRF500 is the higher-capacity kit, and the published specification is specific about its ceiling: it receives feedback from up to 400 different pocket-sized devices at a maximum range of 250 feet. That capacity is what makes it viable outside a single classroom - assemblies, lecture halls, all-staff training, multi-section testing in one room.
Six activity modes ship with it:
- Normal Quiz - conventional question-by-question assessment.
- Rush Quiz - first-responder scoring.
- Elimination - progressive knockout rounds.
- Vote - binary or multi-option decision capture.
- Survey - ungraded opinion collection.
- Freestyle - ad-hoc questions tailored to any topic on the fly.
Supported question formats are True/False, Multiple Choice and Short Answer. Content is authored either in the bundled QClick software or directly through PowerPoint integration, which matters more than it sounds: a presenter who already builds decks does not have to learn a second authoring tool. The presenter remote includes mouse control, so the instructor can drive the deck from anywhere in the room rather than standing at the laptop.
Class packs: QRF512 (12 student remotes), QRF524 (24), QRF532 (32) - each with one teacher remote and one receiver.
QOMO QClick QRF300 - $687.88
Product page: https://www.encoredataproducts.com/audience-response-systems/qomo-qclick-qrf300-audience-response-system/
SKU QRF300. The QRF300 is described as a simple, cost-effective system for classrooms, group meetings and anywhere instant feedback is wanted. Its data story is the notable part: results import and export as XML, and gathered information converts to PowerPoint slides with a single click. That makes it easy to fold a session's results straight back into the deck you just presented, or into a report, without an intermediate export tool.
It supports multiple quiz formats and both individual and group participation modes - group mode being the one people forget to ask about, since it lets a table of four answer as a team instead of individually.
Class packs: QRF312, QRF324, QRF332, matching the 12/24/32 responder counts of the 500 series.
The difference that decides it
At $687.88 versus $764.88, the two kits sit close enough that price alone should not decide. Three things should:
- Room size and headcount. The QRF500's published 400-device capacity and 250-foot range are the ceiling that a large-room deployment needs. The QRF300 is positioned for classroom-scale groups.
- Activity variety. If you want Rush Quiz and Elimination for engagement games, that is the QRF500's named feature set.
- Presenter mobility. The QRF500's presenter remote includes mouse control. If the instructor needs to run the deck from the back of the room, that is the kit.
If the use case is a show of hands, exit tickets and quick comprehension checks in a normal classroom, the QRF300 does that and exports cleanly. Both are on the category page: https://www.encoredataproducts.com/av-technology/shop-products/audience-response-systems/
Hardware clickers vs audience response software
Every buyer eventually asks whether audience response software on phones and laptops would do the job for less. The honest comparison:
| Clicker-based student response system | Browser-based audience response software | |
|---|---|---|
| Device required | Supplied responder, handed out | Each participant's own phone or laptop |
| Network | Own RF link; nothing on the network | Wi-Fi or cellular for every participant |
| Setup per session | Distribute remotes | Every participant joins a room code |
| Identity | Numbered remotes map to a roster | Depends on sign-in discipline |
| Recurring cost | None published; QClick software is included with the kit | Typically per-seat or per-year subscription |
| Distraction risk | Single-purpose device | The device also runs everything else |
The QClick kits include their authoring software: the QRF500 ships with QClick software plus PowerPoint integration, and the QRF300 converts gathered results to PowerPoint slides in one click. That matters for a district comparing a one-time hardware purchase against a renewing per-teacher licence.
Where phone-based polling wins is a one-off conference session with no equipment budget. Where an interactive classroom response system wins is any room that runs the same check for comprehension every day, with students who should not be holding their phones.
What a student response system deployment actually costs
The listed price is for the kit, and the kit is what determines the seat count. Budget the way a purchasing office does:
- Decide the largest simultaneous group you must cover, not the average.
- Choose the class-pack size at or above that number (12, 24 or 32 responders per kit).
- Count receivers, not just remotes - each kit includes one, and rooms that run concurrently each need their own.
- Remember the teacher remote is included in every pack, so you are not buying it separately.
Encore quotes these for schools on purchase orders with Net 30 terms, and sells them under Choice Partners Y22/043KN-03, TIPS 210101 and TIPS 230901, which is usually the faster path for a district that would otherwise have to bid the purchase.
Pairing responders with the rest of the room
Clickers rarely arrive alone. Two pairings come up constantly:
Responders plus a panel. Results have to be visible to be useful. The QOMO BundleBoard i Series puts them on a 4K, 50-touch, Google EDLA-certified display in three sizes: 65-inch at $2,995.00 (https://www.encoredataproducts.com/touchscreens-panels/qomo-bundleboard-i-series-multi-touch-interactive-led-panel-65/), 75-inch at $4,413.00 (https://www.encoredataproducts.com/touchscreens-panels/qomo-bundleboard-i-series-multi-touch-interactive-led-panel-75/) and 86-inch at $5,665.00 (https://www.encoredataproducts.com/touchscreens-panels/qomo-bundleboard-i-series-multi-touch-interactive-led-panel-86/).
Responders plus a document camera. The natural sequence is show the problem, poll the room, then work it live. A portable ScannerCam 5 at $125.00 (https://www.encoredataproducts.com/document-web-cameras/qomo-4k-portable-doc-cam-scannercam-5/) or a wireless WanderCam QPC55W at $280.00 (https://www.encoredataproducts.com/qomo-qpc55w-wandercam-wireless-document-camera/) handles the second half.