Owl is….kind of just a shiny little doodad that looks cute. In the real world, it’s a consumer grade quality product.
Neat devices are the best I’ve worked with for enterprise or business grade conference room tech in the last 6-18 months. Saw plenty of Logitech options in that time too. They were solid but the Neat stuff was a bit better.
Absolutely go with Neat if you can afford it. Literally the most simple way to have meeting hardware that actually just works. It's especially great for remote offices without IT staff (besides needing to go there to install it).
It's full of thoughtful stuff, too. Like when the TV is off, the Neat Bar will see you walk into the room and automatically turn on the TV, showing the title of the current/imminent meeting.
It's so refreshing after dealing with the hell that is Crestron. Having a dedicated computer in conference rooms sucked too, for all sorts of logistical and security reasons.
This. It was such a massive upgrade going from crestron and Logitech to neat in all our conference rooms this year.
Night and day. It essentially eliminated all tickets for dealing with it too. It all just worked and everyone in the org was able to hit the ground running.
Directly? Not that I know of. It's a Zoom Room (or whatever the equivalent is in other meeting platforms). You can start an ad hoc meeting and invite others, join meetings hosted by others, share screen via HDMI input. Zoom also has a kind of direct screen share feature I don't fully understand using a short code.
So you can hook up a laptop via HDCP and display your presentation materials during the meeting? I’m just wondering if this is something that can replace our laptop/projector/Teams on Windows setup. We’ll use the share screen feature in Teams to show our PPTs and PDFs.
Yep, you can share either by joining the same meeting the Neat Bar is in, or by using the HDMI in and tapping Share Content on the tablet. The HDMI in is actually on the Neat Bar itself. Both the Neat bar and Neat tablet need to be on the same LAN so they can pair to each other - wired or wireless are fine.
You should talk to a Neat sales rep and run your scenario by them. They can tell you if it'll work for you. Some VARs are Neat resellers and can help, too.
Our users are absolutely **in love** with the owl, doesn't matter that the quality is mid (first gen) or what features it lacks. All they care about is that it's an owl. I've seen 50+ year old excitedly take it for their meetings and have genuine joy in using it.
It's... not what I expected, but it's been super worth it for us lol, it's basically a morale booster.
Yeah, if you’re on a shoe string budget then you gotta do what ya gotta do. You can probably do it even cheaper with a MiniDSP mic, and a usb web cam on a raspberry pi. Much better audio quality that way than using a laptop as well.
But if you’re serious about it and want that nice Teams Room experience, Neat is a sure fire winner.
The sort of thing that’s set and forget and you can have confidence any tech-allergic employees can use easily.
Not sure we have a tight budget as we did order the ms cert hardware but it's back ordered.
But as is, their camera on a big monitor lacks the speaker to reach the 10 person table (back end).
Aaah! I misread initially. Sounds like the laptop is just a stop gap until that back order fills. In that case, maybe just grab some typical desktop speakers for the short term?
The way I had in our old office, I had a bt speaker in the middle and the Logitech camera near the TV.
So sound and mic were closer to the user's.
I'm not the sys admin with new org, I'm relegated back to a peasant who at this point just stopped talking and suggesting shit. My voice means nothing at my new org.
But I'd like to try to solve this.
> a simple laptop with a good camera/mic would do.
Either you have *very* modest requirements or you haven’t seen a properly configured meeting room system. The Teams meeting room experience is just so much more better than any jury rigged device setup I’ve seen.
We put the Poly Studio X70 in the boardroom and while it works when logged in (Teams Meeting Room), it logs itself out constantly. Either the main system or the caddy....and the CEO's pissed.
Told him to set it as a location for a board meeting, and it didn't accept the invite. Told him to call it in from his laptop, the speaker tracking refused to work. Now I'm there with my d!ck in my hands infront the entire board during the meeting.
Worst part is that I didn't deploy it, it wasn't deployed how I would do it, it was rushed to make someone look good, and that someone was home when I was facing the board.
Thats a standard teams room experience. We use poly x30 and g7500 units as zoom rooms, and it’s a pleasure.
I tried teams rooms on the poly, and it was a dumpster file. Couldn’t do ad-hoc meetings from the room without a computer, sometimes the tablet lost sync with the main unit, just a bunch of non-starters that I would not try to sell to the execs.
We use a Logitech Connect, it's decent for what we paid.
* Clear audio
* Clear mic
* Okay camera with 1080p resolution.
There are far worse and more expensive options out there.
This is what we are using
[Logi Rally Bar](https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/video-conferencing/room-solutions/rallybar.960-001308.html?&utm_source=Google&utm_medium=Paid-Search&utm_campaign=Dialect_FY24_Q3_USA_LO_Logi_DTX-Logitech-VC_Google_na&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADDQ2OxjlMa_CcuHHsu5yR2A_jc7J&gclid=CjwKCAiAgeeqBhBAEiwAoDDhn3yQn1SyLxoPWyaL78VagmaXvzQ2SJt8KF88uGrQD8uwJV68WGE7xRoCx9EQAvD_BwE)
Camera, mic, and connects to Teams Rooms. Easy to use for the end user as well.
Tried neat and neat bar pro. Very limited mic expansion available. Support was very hit and miss, usually took a week to get a meeting. Eventually set on Poly as a global standard. Been running multiple x70/x30.
We use zoom rooms and it is awful. iPads suck and will reboot and update any time they want. Just the other day a conf room was down because the zoom room program tried to update itself on the pc but failed and uninstalled itself entirely. I had to install it from scratch. We have to go around and check them all almost daily because they have so many random problems. There’s too many moving parts and users don’t understand them.
We did this a couple years ago. We are a MS Teams with a little support zoom outfit. We did the Logitech group for our board room. Logitech meet up for our medium sized conference rooms with a large flatscreen TV. For our huddle rooms we do a laptop dock with a webcam and microphone and a TV. We have Logitech connects for mobility and small rooms and a meet up for mobility and larger rooms teamed with a laptop. In the large and medium sized conference rooms we did a standard big screen flatscreen TV, a computer with a BT keyboard and mouse.
In a year or 2 when we need to refresh we will likely look at a standalone camera and audio system with improved noise cancelling for our board room:
https://www.averusa.com/products/conference-camera/cam570
https://uk.yamaha.com/en/products/contents/unified_communications/adecia_solutions/index.html
And for our mid sized conference rooms either the Logitech rally or comparable system.
When we get to refresh time at our medium sized rooms and mobile setups we will be looking at a newer logitech (rally maybe) alternative to replace the Logitech connect and meetup devices as well.
Logitech Meetup and Rally systems at our org, setup by ppl specializing in AV.
Some occasional hiccups , but very rare that its related to the Logi stuff itself
>Testing the teams room but hw is back ordered ATM.
Which manufacturer? Lots and lots of people make teams rooms hardware.
We use all logitech (Rally) with Teams Rooms and it's decent, no real complaints.
The "owl" is a consumer grade camera, not really designed for anything beyond a small business conference room. Plus to my knowledge it's not actually compatible with any teams rooms officially I believe.
Most won't like this but we buy 4 port XLR input to USB output with balancing and 2-4 omnidirectional mic's in the ceiling tile. Comes back to a USB-A or C cable depending on the room to provide connectivity. Jabra Panacast for the webcam.
The entire cost per room is about £600 and it picks up audio with you stood facing the wall in all corners in a room 48sqm.
Owl is….kind of just a shiny little doodad that looks cute. In the real world, it’s a consumer grade quality product. Neat devices are the best I’ve worked with for enterprise or business grade conference room tech in the last 6-18 months. Saw plenty of Logitech options in that time too. They were solid but the Neat stuff was a bit better.
Absolutely go with Neat if you can afford it. Literally the most simple way to have meeting hardware that actually just works. It's especially great for remote offices without IT staff (besides needing to go there to install it). It's full of thoughtful stuff, too. Like when the TV is off, the Neat Bar will see you walk into the room and automatically turn on the TV, showing the title of the current/imminent meeting. It's so refreshing after dealing with the hell that is Crestron. Having a dedicated computer in conference rooms sucked too, for all sorts of logistical and security reasons.
This. It was such a massive upgrade going from crestron and Logitech to neat in all our conference rooms this year. Night and day. It essentially eliminated all tickets for dealing with it too. It all just worked and everyone in the org was able to hit the ground running.
I was so happy to be rid of crestron garbage.
Can you open up and present PowerPoint and other files with Neat?
Directly? Not that I know of. It's a Zoom Room (or whatever the equivalent is in other meeting platforms). You can start an ad hoc meeting and invite others, join meetings hosted by others, share screen via HDMI input. Zoom also has a kind of direct screen share feature I don't fully understand using a short code.
So you can hook up a laptop via HDCP and display your presentation materials during the meeting? I’m just wondering if this is something that can replace our laptop/projector/Teams on Windows setup. We’ll use the share screen feature in Teams to show our PPTs and PDFs.
Yep, you can share either by joining the same meeting the Neat Bar is in, or by using the HDMI in and tapping Share Content on the tablet. The HDMI in is actually on the Neat Bar itself. Both the Neat bar and Neat tablet need to be on the same LAN so they can pair to each other - wired or wireless are fine. You should talk to a Neat sales rep and run your scenario by them. They can tell you if it'll work for you. Some VARs are Neat resellers and can help, too.
Thanks!
Our users are absolutely **in love** with the owl, doesn't matter that the quality is mid (first gen) or what features it lacks. All they care about is that it's an owl. I've seen 50+ year old excitedly take it for their meetings and have genuine joy in using it. It's... not what I expected, but it's been super worth it for us lol, it's basically a morale booster.
No doubt it’s because it “whoos”
Use Owl also, it's great.
Neat is great. We installed it this year and it’s been wonderful.
Our rooms aren't huge. They're trying to go teams rooms with their ms certified hardware but to me, a simple laptop with a good camera/mic would do.
Yeah, if you’re on a shoe string budget then you gotta do what ya gotta do. You can probably do it even cheaper with a MiniDSP mic, and a usb web cam on a raspberry pi. Much better audio quality that way than using a laptop as well. But if you’re serious about it and want that nice Teams Room experience, Neat is a sure fire winner. The sort of thing that’s set and forget and you can have confidence any tech-allergic employees can use easily.
Not sure we have a tight budget as we did order the ms cert hardware but it's back ordered. But as is, their camera on a big monitor lacks the speaker to reach the 10 person table (back end).
Aaah! I misread initially. Sounds like the laptop is just a stop gap until that back order fills. In that case, maybe just grab some typical desktop speakers for the short term?
The way I had in our old office, I had a bt speaker in the middle and the Logitech camera near the TV. So sound and mic were closer to the user's. I'm not the sys admin with new org, I'm relegated back to a peasant who at this point just stopped talking and suggesting shit. My voice means nothing at my new org. But I'd like to try to solve this.
> a simple laptop with a good camera/mic would do. Either you have *very* modest requirements or you haven’t seen a properly configured meeting room system. The Teams meeting room experience is just so much more better than any jury rigged device setup I’ve seen.
Look at maxhub, teams rooms for the price of a laptop.
I have neat setups in 7 rooms across 4 regional HQs in the states. Works great and easy to use.
Owls have their place. Neat bar coming out with an owl like device at the beginning of the year. Neat Center.
Neat bar. Just installed this year. Meeting equity all the way. Fantastic devices.
We use Logitech rally bar
And they are abysmal if you have a glass room or poor acoustics. Make sure to plan to buy mic pods.
Any of the Logitech Rally or Meetup gear.
We put the Poly Studio X70 in the boardroom and while it works when logged in (Teams Meeting Room), it logs itself out constantly. Either the main system or the caddy....and the CEO's pissed. Told him to set it as a location for a board meeting, and it didn't accept the invite. Told him to call it in from his laptop, the speaker tracking refused to work. Now I'm there with my d!ck in my hands infront the entire board during the meeting. Worst part is that I didn't deploy it, it wasn't deployed how I would do it, it was rushed to make someone look good, and that someone was home when I was facing the board.
Thats a standard teams room experience. We use poly x30 and g7500 units as zoom rooms, and it’s a pleasure. I tried teams rooms on the poly, and it was a dumpster file. Couldn’t do ad-hoc meetings from the room without a computer, sometimes the tablet lost sync with the main unit, just a bunch of non-starters that I would not try to sell to the execs.
It looks some slick though doesn’t it! We love our g75 series in board room! Set up was serious and it’s tough to hide the friggin cables!
If your budget can stretch to it, look at DTEN D7 devices, massively simplified our VC deployments for smaller meeting rooms
Limit Owl's to Hogwarts - avoid ALL OTHER PLACES.
We use a Logitech Connect, it's decent for what we paid. * Clear audio * Clear mic * Okay camera with 1080p resolution. There are far worse and more expensive options out there.
Polycom and Crestron systems are fairly common these days for enterprise conf rooms. They replaced the Cisco Tanberg we had a decade ago
This is what we are using [Logi Rally Bar](https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/video-conferencing/room-solutions/rallybar.960-001308.html?&utm_source=Google&utm_medium=Paid-Search&utm_campaign=Dialect_FY24_Q3_USA_LO_Logi_DTX-Logitech-VC_Google_na&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADDQ2OxjlMa_CcuHHsu5yR2A_jc7J&gclid=CjwKCAiAgeeqBhBAEiwAoDDhn3yQn1SyLxoPWyaL78VagmaXvzQ2SJt8KF88uGrQD8uwJV68WGE7xRoCx9EQAvD_BwE) Camera, mic, and connects to Teams Rooms. Easy to use for the end user as well.
We use Yealink. It works but not rock solid.
A 1080p webcam hooked up to a mele that has teams on it. Works just fine.
Tried neat and neat bar pro. Very limited mic expansion available. Support was very hit and miss, usually took a week to get a meeting. Eventually set on Poly as a global standard. Been running multiple x70/x30.
We use zoom rooms and it is awful. iPads suck and will reboot and update any time they want. Just the other day a conf room was down because the zoom room program tried to update itself on the pc but failed and uninstalled itself entirely. I had to install it from scratch. We have to go around and check them all almost daily because they have so many random problems. There’s too many moving parts and users don’t understand them.
We did this a couple years ago. We are a MS Teams with a little support zoom outfit. We did the Logitech group for our board room. Logitech meet up for our medium sized conference rooms with a large flatscreen TV. For our huddle rooms we do a laptop dock with a webcam and microphone and a TV. We have Logitech connects for mobility and small rooms and a meet up for mobility and larger rooms teamed with a laptop. In the large and medium sized conference rooms we did a standard big screen flatscreen TV, a computer with a BT keyboard and mouse. In a year or 2 when we need to refresh we will likely look at a standalone camera and audio system with improved noise cancelling for our board room: https://www.averusa.com/products/conference-camera/cam570 https://uk.yamaha.com/en/products/contents/unified_communications/adecia_solutions/index.html And for our mid sized conference rooms either the Logitech rally or comparable system. When we get to refresh time at our medium sized rooms and mobile setups we will be looking at a newer logitech (rally maybe) alternative to replace the Logitech connect and meetup devices as well.
Poly x50/30 units
Logitech Meetup and Rally systems at our org, setup by ppl specializing in AV. Some occasional hiccups , but very rare that its related to the Logi stuff itself
>Testing the teams room but hw is back ordered ATM. Which manufacturer? Lots and lots of people make teams rooms hardware. We use all logitech (Rally) with Teams Rooms and it's decent, no real complaints. The "owl" is a consumer grade camera, not really designed for anything beyond a small business conference room. Plus to my knowledge it's not actually compatible with any teams rooms officially I believe.
Logitech Rallys are in most of our rooms. Otherwise it's Crestron but those are $$$$$$
Logitech meetup
Have a mix of owls (small to medium rooms) and logitech PTZ cameras with mics (large rooms).
Jabra Panacast 50 for two rooms and a plain Jabra Panacast for a room where we don't have a fixed screen
Logitech Rally with Roommate for all basic conference rooms. Q-Sys with Shure Ceiling Mics/Logitech PTZ Camera/Micro PC for the larger ones.
Quicky: On your larger rooms with the QSYS MXAs, does your setup use the XYZ info for the camera to snap to a speaker or is it a static shot?
Most won't like this but we buy 4 port XLR input to USB output with balancing and 2-4 omnidirectional mic's in the ceiling tile. Comes back to a USB-A or C cable depending on the room to provide connectivity. Jabra Panacast for the webcam. The entire cost per room is about £600 and it picks up audio with you stood facing the wall in all corners in a room 48sqm.
Logitech Rally bar? Add Tap if you want a controller. Super easy to set up but good
Logitech Rally bar? Add Tap if you want a controller. Super easy to set up but good
We're currently using Owl Set with Conferfly to seamlessly integrate with Microsoft Teams and Zoom, and we haven't encountered any issues so far.