Playing a Test Tone

To identify areas with choppy audio or inadequate wireless coverage, play a test tone.

Vocera badges provide two voice commands that allow you to play a continuous test tone, which can help identify areas with choppy audio or inadequate wireless coverage:

Play Test Tone—plays a continuous test tone.
Broadcast Test Tone—plays a multicast test tone (a broadcast sent from the server to you only).

Both commands require that you are logged in as a user with administrator privileges.

If Vocera users complain of poor coverage or choppy audio, you can use the Play Test Tone and Broadcast Test Tone commands to test the operation of the badge in that location.

The badge plays a tone for 31.7 seconds and is then silent for 1.2 seconds before the next tone starts. If packets of information are being lost, you will hear the tone breaking up.

Important: Do not play the test tone for longer than a couple minutes at a time. Repeatedly playing a test tone on a badge continuously for ten minutes or more could cause speaker performance to degrade over time.

To play a test tone in a particular location, perform the following:

Bring two Vocera badges to a location where choppy audio was reported.
Approach the nearest wireless access point.
Press the call button and say Play Test Tone, on one badge.
Select Info>Radio to see the Vocera SNR value for that location, on the other badge.
Take away both badges from the access point.

Note the quality of the test tone and the SNR value as you are walking.
Continue walking until the badge indicates that the SNR value has dropped to 18.
This is the fringe of the signal for acceptable voice quality.
Repeat the test from step 1, using Broadcast Test Tone voice command.