FitzFavourites: Hardware to improve your video conferencing

Many businesses will soon find themselves somewhere in between remote and office working, meaning that going forward meetings will need to manage both virtual and physical attendees. So, how can you make the most of virtual meetings going forward? At the heart of that, is the peripherals and software that you use to connect.

As much as we’ve heard it over recent months, life has changed – and we must adapt. In this week’s blog, we’re tackling some of the challenges in partially returning to the office.

Meetings have been a cornerstone of the business world, often proving a chance to build new business, strategise and inform – but if half of the attendees are remote and the other half social distancing, how can you make sure your meetings remain effective?

We’re finding that many are searching for a solution which works seamlessly, best equips rooms to provide a quality conference capability and one which make the right impression to external stakeholders. That’s why we’re putting together our FitzFavourites for video conferencing.

FitzFavourites: Video Conferencing Must-Haves

Panoramic Conferencing Camera: Jabra Panacast

The first must-have is the Jabra Panacast, a 4K 180º video conferencing camera. The Jabra Panacast is an intelligent panoramic video collaboration device designed for meeting rooms and huddle spaces.

Using three 13-megapixel cameras and a feature dubbed “Intelligent Zoom” this device uses technology to show the active speakers to other participants.

Speakerphone: Jabra Speak

To support video conferencing, it’s a good idea to invest in a high-quality speakerphone. While there are plenty on the market to choose from, we often tend to pair the speakerphone with the same manufacturer as the video camera.

When opting for a Jabra Panacast, we recommend pairing a speakerphone from the Jabra Speak series of speakerphones. The Speak Series has several options depending on the number of users – ranging from 4 to 15 people.

As part of our service, the team at Fitzrovia IT work to understand how many users you anticipate and work to provide the optimal setup to suit.

Dedicated PC

For our clients looking for the ultimate conferencing setup, we recommend the use of a dedicated PC to allow for seamless user experience.

While it may sound redundant to have a PC with the primary function of sitting in a conference room, the investment ensures the conferencing technologies provided can be useful to all staff, regardless of whether they have a device.

A conference room PC needn’t take up too much space – we recommend a capable Slimline PC tucked behind a wall-mounted monitor.

Wall-Mounting and Cable Management

It’s important to remember that a meeting room is often someone’s first experience with a business, equally as important as the hardware is ensuring cables remain out of sight.

All of the FitzFavourites come with speciality mounts making sure that meeting rooms are free from cables and clutter.

Microsoft Teams

If you’re using the Microsoft 365 platform, you already have access to one of the most powerful video conferencing apps available, Microsoft Teams. The communication and collaboration app allow users to create both video meetings of up to 250 participants or large scale presentations to audiences of up to 10,000 people.

Not only does the platform deliver video conferencing abilities, but also ties in with other Microsoft apps, Word, Excel and PowerPoint among the list. Furthermore, Microsoft remains transparent with security concerns, saying that Teams data isn’t used for advertising purposes, doesn’t track participant attention and deletes data upon the ending of your subscription.

Video Conferencing: beyond entry-level

There we have it, the video conferencing must-haves your business needs – this entry-level setup will equip any meeting room into a world-class video conferencing hub. We’ve been working with a number of clients looking to invest in their setups, ranging from entry-level setups like what is listed above through to business class setups that leave a strong impression.

We’re helping many businesses in their return to the office, whether that be setting up video conferencing capabilities or the infrastructure to allow efficient home working. If you’ve got questions about video conferencing, speak to our team today to learn more about a solution built around your business.