At Cowgills we have begun to welcome some staff returning to the office whilst others continue to work from home. Similarly, a number of clients are wanting to maintain virtual communications, with others are quite happy to get back to the face to face meetings.
Businesses are needing to become more flexible, remote, and diverse and we wanted to ensure that we could simplify collaboration so looked to add fixed ‘Video Conferencing’ facilities to our offices.
About Zoom Rooms
As we use Zoom throughout the business it seemed logical to look at ‘Zoom Rooms’ as the provider for this function. Zoom Rooms makes it easy to connect those sharing one physical space with others working remotely. A useful feature is the use of physical hardware to make the meeting process simple and give a professional quality and feel.
‘Neat’ have partnered with Zoom to offer this solution. All you need in your meeting space are the fully managed Neat Zoom devices, which are simple to set-up and use and in my opinion, good value for money.
Bookings are made in the same way as Zoom meetings and with Outlook calendar integrations you can link into existing meeting room scheduling. There is also support for Microsoft Teams within Zoom Rooms expected very soon which adds a great degree of flexibility when scheduling both internal and external meetings
What hardware is required?
The hardware we have chosen at Cowgills is manufactured by Neat and comes with camera speaker device that can be installed either above or below the existing meeting room TV screen(s) and a tablet that can either sit on a desk or be wall mounted. This can be configured as a controller or scheduler which allows you to launch a meeting at the touch of a single button.
The product is slim, has a high-performance speaker, is equipped with an 4K HD camera, and an integrated chip that wakes up the moment you walk into the room. The device is capable of capturing the entire room in HD. We have found that it to be perfect for bringing high quality audio and video to your meeting.
One of the additional benefits of dedicated hardware is that it’s very easy to maintain and updates are easy to control. The Neat device has been future proofed meaning new features are planned for existing equipment without having a negative impact.
Wireless screen sharing is also a function that can be used in meeting or for internal presentations.
How we are finding it at Cowgills
We launched our first zoom room just two weeks ago, and already there is huge demand across the business to use it. As I mentioned the technology is relatively cost effective, and the huge benefit to us, is that we are able to collaborate with clients and contacts across the country.
The boardroom is not like it used to be, and that was the case even before Covid. Today’s meetings have to take into account remote workers, satellite offices and distant customers.
As a software-based solution, Zoom Rooms are not dependent on hardware or equipment for all to install as with previous video conferencing facilities.
We look forward to installing further Zoom Rooms across our offices in the coming months.
If you would like to speak to someone about installing zoom room software into your meeting space, please get in touch with Stephen Tattersall.
Disclaimer
The information was correct at time of publishing but may now be out of date.
