Since the early days of Microsoft meeting room solutions, things have come a long way. It was 2016 when Microsoft announced the launch of the Skype Room System: a Microsoft native room system designed to simplify the meeting room experience which really set the approach Microsoft would take to meeting rooms: right through to the Microsoft Teams Rooms systems we use today. With the exception of Surface Hub, Microsoft’s approach to video conferencing solutions has been to work closely with partners: Microsoft provide the software, partners provide the hardware. With dozens of partners providing solutions for Microsoft Teams Rooms, each has their own unique approach. This gives us a lot of options to choose from when we’re looking to design the right solution for a particular space.

With that in mind, here’s some of the more interesting developments in the meeting room equipment space of late that we’re going to see more of in 2023.

CAMERAS

Of course, one of the most important components of any video conferencing solution is the camera. This is one area that’s come leaps and bounds in recent years: people counting, auto framing, and speaker tracking are all features we expect to see in camera technology when choosing the right solution. We need to make sure people are “seen and can be seen” – But what’s next for camera tech?

AI-POWERED MULTI-CAMERA SOLUTIONS

If you think about the traditional meeting room space, the layout is pretty familiar: rectangular table that people sit around, one or two screens at the front with a camera sandwiched between them. For people attending these meetings remotely, they can be at a disadvantage: when people are talking amongst themselves at the table, remote participants aren’t getting a great view face on of the speakers. How can we solve this with solutions from our partners?

Logitech Sight Towards the end of last year, Logitech announced Logitech Sight: a tabletop camera with intelligent multi-participant framing. This camera is mounted to the table, and works in conjunction with Logitech Rally Bar (and Rally Bar Mini) front of room video bars to provide the best view of meeting participants. It’s important to point out that Logitech Sight does not replace the front of room camera: it augments it. Software will decide which camera to display to the far end, based on the direction the speaker is facing and where sound is coming from:

“As an AI-powered camera, Logitech Sight provides alternative perspectives—by extending audio and video into larger rooms—to Rally Bar or Rally Bar Mini camera at the front of the room. With dual 4K cameras and seven beamforming microphones, Sight captures conversations and nonverbals as they naturally happen. This ultimately enhances employee participation and engagement by helping remote attendees feel as if they’re actually seated at the table. Coming later after launch, Sight will enable RightSight with Smart Switching, adaptive intelligence that selects the best view between the tabletop camera and front-of-room camera, intuitively switching between camera views of in-person interactions and tracking conversations naturally.”

Quote from press release: Logitech International – Logitech Sight AI Camera Makes Hybrid Work Meetings More Equitable for Remote Participants

Logitech Sight will be available sometime in the second half of 2023.

YEALINK SMARTVISION 60

Taking a slightly different approach, Yealink have introduced their tabletop camera solution, the SmartVision 60. Rather than augment the front of room camera, this is designed to be the only camera deployed in the room.

The multi-stream people feed feature creates individual video feeds of four in-room active speakers and stitches them together, showing the panoramic view of the room at the same time. For those that have been in the UC space for a while, you may be getting pangs of nostalgia – Microsoft RoundTable? Anyone?

Whilst it might not suit any use case, it is interesting to see a pure table top camera system only re-enter the market.

CRESTRON 1 BEYOND

Crestron are a well know name in the Audio Visual integration world, manufacturing a wide range of devices that are deployed into meeting rooms worldwide. From almost the beginning, Crestron has offered their own Microsoft Teams Room systems (Crestron Flex). However, one area that Crestron did not have offerings of their own was cameras. This changed in early 2022, with Crestron announcing the acquisition of 1 Beyond.

“By bringing 1 Beyond technology to Crestron, we can further develop our intelligent video solutions to address the growing need to create equitable experiences for hybrid collaboration whether that be in the board room, the classroom, or anywhere else. 1 Beyond’s solutions expand our Crestron digital workplace portfolio and enable us to bring better experiences to our customers”.

Quote from press release: Crestron To Acquire Innovative 1 Beyond Intelligent Video Technology [Crestron Electronics, Inc.]

1 Beyond make a variety of camera systems, supporting single camera, dual camera and multi camera (up to 12!) solutions to meet a wide range of requirements. Crestron is still working with Microsoft on certification of 1 Beyond’s camera systems, but expect to see some announcement around that soon. Given their camera capabilities, they still deserve a mention here while we wait for official certification.

1 BEYOND HAWK DUAL CAMERA SYSTEM

Again, for those that have bene around Microsoft centric video conferencing solutions for some time, you may recall seeing dual camera systems that look a bit like the Hawk before. For Microsoft deployments, in particular Skype for Business meeting rooms, the Poly(com) Eagle Eye Director I and II were a common site where face tracking was a requirement. Both of these Poly camera systems are quite long in the tooth, and with Poly moving away from this approach with the release of the Poly E70, there has been a bit of a gap in the market for a dual camera, optical zoom smart camera solution for Microsoft Teams Rooms.

The Crestron 1 Beyond Hawk fills this gap nicely. This is actually a four-camera system, with two optical zoom PTZ cameras to pick up active speakers, and two wide angle cameras to watch the entire room and support fast switching of the main camera view.

Having seen these in action, their speed, accuracy and software capabilities make them a great choice for larger spaces. The Hawk also supports split screen when two in room participants are talking back and forth with each other, and masking allows us to block our zones that we want the tracking system to ignore (think tv screens, glass meeting room walls etc) to make the accuracy even better.

1 BEYOND AUTOMATE VX

What we’ve seen so far are welcome additions, adding to the tools and solutions available to us when designing the perfect spaces for use with Microsoft Teams. 1 Beyond Automate VX takes it even further.

Supporting up to 12 (yes 12!) in-room cameras all working together, Automate VX provides a smooth and natural remote experience with quick, clean cuts between speakers. The solution also supports intelligent features like built-in noise delay: eliminating unnecessary switching due to noise, coughs, or short utterances in the room.

Another feature of the Automate VX solution is integration with in room microphones. It’s able to interpret information from in room microphone solutions from a variety of vendors and use this information to direct a camera to focus on the active speaker. This multi-camera and microphone integrated approach is unique to 1 Beyond, and I expect to see these solutions deployed in high end Microsoft Teams Room enabled boardrooms one officially certified.

This is just some of the amazing technology that we expect to see deployed more and more in meeting room in 2023. Looking to deploy meeting rooms in your organisation? Fill out the form below and one of our team will get in touch.