Taking Printpress Online

We spend a lot of time (and money on coffee) in East Austin, so we were thrilled to work with Printpress on creating a wireless network throughout their campus that’s both effective and easy-to-use.  

If you don’t know, Printpress is Austin’s coolest work/live space. They offer co-working, studio and living spaces – like so many other co-working companies cropping up – but they do so through preserving and honoring the existing East Austin infrastructure and architecture. Printpress locations are converted bungalows and warehouses nestled between Willow and Ceasar Chavez, available by room or house (depending on your needs).

Yet, Printpress’s commitment to preserving the East Austin character while modernizing the spaces to meet their 21st century creators’ needs presented a unique challenge: how do you create a centralized (and therefor easy to manage and troubleshoot) network across a campus of concrete, glass and (lots!) of walls for multiple clients with multiple devices with multitudes of data?

Charging tenants with setting up their own Wi-Fi wasn’t a good solution, as Printpress aspires to be more turnkey, and regularly hosts guests with The Guild.

In short, we got in there and worked some magic. And by there, we mean every nook and cranny of the Printpress campus – from attics to closets – installing Access Points curated for optimal speeds despite the glass and concrete which typically hinder Wi-Fi.

While we installed surveillance and created a branded landing page for guest Wi-Fi access, the highlight of the project was organizing the Access Points and respective data into a custom, centralized dashboard. In doing so, we’ve created a system that allows us to monitor Printpress network’s performance, as well as aggregate bandwidth metrics by guest and client in case Printpress chooses to charge for data use or implement a bandwidth priority (for things like movie streaming at work).

The best part? Streak is on call for Printpress 24/7 to maintain and support amazing Wi-Fi and surveillance systems.