Most conference room hardware that"s available is designed for, well, rooms that were created for conferences. Unfortunately, that doesn"t always work out with modern workspaces, which can have smaller, more casual collaboration spaces.
Today, Logitech introduced the MeetUp, a conference camera that"s designed for the "huddle room".
It"s got three omnidirectional microphones built into it, which are Cortana- and Skype-certified, and a "custom-tuned speaker". With traditional systems, audio equipment would be placed in the middle of a table, but that could be a problem in the smaller huddle room.
It"s optimized for rooms where no one will be more than eight feet away from the camera, and it has a 120-degree field of view for this. There"s also an optional expansion microphone though, which expands that range to 14 feet; this can also be useful if someone is standing behind the standard microphones.
And while your business might not be doing 4K video conferences today, you might in the future and the MeetUp is prepared. Along with support for 4K recording, it has a 13-megapixel sensor, which offers it up to 5x lossless zoom at 1080p.
It comes with an RF remote, so you don"t have to deal with the hassle of pointing it at the device, or things blocking it. As you can see from the image to the right, you can use it to zoom, connect to Bluetooth, pan/tilt, and more. Of course, if you don"t like it, you can always use the app that"s available for iOS and Android.
The main selling point of the MeetUp is the all-in-one design. There"s no mess of cables or mandatory audio equipment that go into setup.
Available in July, the MeetUp will cost $899 in the US, €1099 in EMEA regions, and £999 in the UK. The Expansion Mic will be $219, €249, and £229. Finally, there"s also a TV mount, which will be an additional $79 in the US and €99 in EMEA markets (we"ve reached out for UK pricing).
Logitech says that it"s not ending support for any of its existing products; in fact, it priced the MeetUp similarly to existing conference room hardware, so businesses wouldn"t end up sacrificing quality to get a device that"s cheaper.