What is BYOD?
Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Refers to personal devices such as phones, tablets, Windows laptops or Macbooks being brought into the office for use in a business environment. Many people prefer to work with their own personal device, because it’s more natural and familiar. They tend to avoid equipment that they have not been shown how to use. Rather than spend time finding out how to operate it. However simple it may actually be.
Many organisations have chosen to install meeting room peripherals such as widescreen displays or HD TVs. So that employees coming to the office can plug in their own device on HDMI. In much the same way as they probably would when working from home. But able to share their content with all the other meeting room participants regardless of the size of meeting room. This isn’t new; it is the way that event spaces have been set up for years with traditional 4:3 projectors. Although traditionally with VGA cabled connectivity. So, what is new? BYOM?
What is BYOM?
Bring Your Own Meeting (BYOM) refers to the BYOD user bringing a meeting invitation with them on their personal device. Wishing to host or join a video or collaborative meeting from the meeting room. For this they need more than a TV; they need a camera, a set of microphones and loudspeaker suited to the size and shape of the room. The BYOD user may have received the Zoom, Teams, Webex or other invitation. Some time before connecting his/her device in the meeting room and so ease and reliability of connection are paramount to avoid wasted time, frustration of other meeting room users and everyone else in the conference call.
Often connected on a set of cables, ie HDMI-out to the display and USB for the interactive audio, video and collaboration features; we’re now introducing 2-cable complexity that some users find simply too much. Added concerns are expressed when we start talking USB-A vs USB-B vs USB-C. Or worse still, USB2.0, 3,0, 3.1, 3.2, Gen.1, Gen.2 etc etc. Not forgetting the odd display port connection here and there.
So, isn’t it easier to install a dedicated meeting room system which is already natively registered to MS Teams, or Zoom or Google Meet or Webex? Here is where MTRs have become popular.
What is MTR?
Microsoft Teams Room (MTR) or its equivalent Zoom Rooms, Webex Room or Google Meet Room system. Is a set of peripherals similar to those used within the BYOM environment. But supplied with a processing device (Windows or Android) and touch tablet for the meeting room table. The processor is pre-loaded with the chosen room application and registered directly to the selected cloud service platform. It is the system (or associated meeting room) that is invited to the meeting. Allowing any meeting participant to commence the call upon entering the room simply by pressing the “Join” button. No meeting IDs or passwords to remember whatsoever.
This is a completely different approach to meeting room invitation which many find simpler and more reliable than BYOM. But at a cost of flexibility. The system is generally locked into Teams or Zoom or Webex or Google Meet. The quality and features of cross-platform interoperability are poor compared with BYOM. We’re not going to elaborate on Room Systems at this stage as this article aims to bring out the best in BYOM for those who have chosen to go down that route. Instead of the room system route.
Does one size of BYOM fit all?
Absolutely not ! There are many factors that will affect your choice of BYOM system or bundle:
- Type of meeting room
- Width and length of meeting room
- Height of the ceiling
- Floor structure
- Room furnishings
- Position of windows
- Display type
- Guest hosting of meetings
- USB policy
Let’s examine each in turn:
Type of meeting room
It is important to define the main use of the room. As a Boardroom, participants will typically sit around the table. Often talking across it, meaning that without the right camera and audio system, camera and microphone positions may be wrong. As an occasional meeting room, users will generally sit at the head of the table facing the display screen. With camera positioned centrally above or below it. As a training room or classroom, the presenter will normally stand at the front of the room. Sometimes behind a lectern, facing his/her audience and inviting live Q&A.
But who is to be seen during that Q&A, the presenter or the audience or both? Camera positioning at the front, rear and sometimes sides of the room and then accompanied by multiple microphones. Whether they be tabletop, gooseneck lectern, wearable (lapel, lavaliere) or ceiling mounted. Of course, this affects the required volume from loudspeakers and the resultant echo cancellation. Which is critically important when big groups are involved.
Width and length of meeting room
A wide and short room or a small square room will have meeting participants close up to the camera lens and spread width ways in front of it. This ideally suited to a meeting bar with a digital, wide-angled lens rather than an optical, motorised, pan/tilt/zoom (PTZ) camera. However digital cameras electronically crop their images in order to provide a zoom function. This limits their clarity over 3m. A PTZ camera on the other hand is designed with a motorised lens so that it can easily zoom in. Typically 4x, 8x, 12x, 20x or even 30x without the people (often the most important participants, particularly if only one attendee) appearing grainy to remote meeting participants.
Height of Ceiling
Often overlooked during the design phase of a project, but increasingly common in modern building design are high ceilings. These generally add resonance to a room making it more difficult for microphones to collect direct voice sounds. Rather than reflected ones and more of a challenge for the echo canceller. To prevent loopback to the far end participants especially when the volume is turned up in a large space. The emptier the room, the bigger the challenge unless you’re planning on a professional Digital Signal Processor (DSP) as part of your solution.
Whilst we do install them in specialised rooms, such DSPs are uncommon in BYOM environments. In any room higher than the standard 2.4 to 2.8m, consider microphone placement very carefully bearing in mind that participants are usually casting their voices forward towards the remote participants appearing on the display screen and pick-up from microphone positions on the meeting table will ultimately perform better than ones hung from the ceiling above them. Imaging one ceiling mic hung above the centre of a table. More than half the room’s participants are already casting their voices away from the microphone as it would be very weird for them to cast upwards.
Floor Structure
Running cables for a discrete appearance and safe working area is always a challenge. Less so with suspended floor tiles although access into walls behind skirting boards may be limited. Solid floors with porcelain tiles, marble, laminated or parquet finishing immediately lend themselves to wireless technologies though in some cases budget limitations still demand the use of floor mats, unsightly “speed humps” or bespoke “raceways” as a compromise against a non-recommended trip hazard.
Room furnishings
The harder the chairs, floor covering and walls, the lack of curtains, blinds or canvas wall exhibits, the more the room sounds like an empty room. No echo cancellation will ever deal with your room acoustics and in some cases your newly designed room, full of latest design features and ready to feature in building design award programme may still be regarded as “unfit for purpose” and an embarrassment to those who commissioned it. Involve the video experts early in the process to make sure it’s not back to the drawing board just before you move in.
Position of windows
Windows on the opposite wall to the display screen have been known to cause problems for years. Excessive light without window coverings will cause the iris of any camera lens to close making the participants in the room to look darker, while the camera does its best to focus on the trees and buildings outside. With wide angled meeting bars, designed for a wider audience, the problem can be extended to the side walls too and so such rooms may still benefit from superior optical PTZ camera technologies with built in “AI” capabilities.
Display type
Often associated with the type of meeting room, as discussed earlier, displays range from small TVs mounted on rollabout stands, to wall mounted digital signage displays, video walls and projectors, to interactive touch screens commonly known as “Smartboards” or “Meeting Boards”. The latter are common in teaching or lecture spaces but are becoming increasingly popular in meeting rooms, especially collaboration rooms, scrum rooms and sprint rooms. The person standing at the board (interactive display) is essentially controlling a PC using USB touchback and that PC sends its image back to the board via HDMI.
This looped functionality needs to be fast and certain meeting boards have quicker response times than others. Delays can be introduced using poor cables or low cost wireless technologies and so such factors need to be understood depending upon the interactive application/s required. Simple powerpoint presentation may be interactive in terms of slide progression but it has much lower performance requirements than multi-point touch brainstorming or high speed 3rd-party apps. Our experience of acceptable wireless BYOM performance is limited to just a few of the market leaders and is influenced by PC and wireless network performance, positioning and load of wireless access point (WAP) etc.
Guest hosting of meetings
If your meeting rooms are for the exclusive use of your own employees who have login access to your corporate or education network, then set-up is usually straightforward. The nature of BYOD and BYOM though encourages guest hosting and in hired out event spaces, hotels, conference halls etc, this will be the norm rather than the exception. Some solutions on the market are limited to a single network, others support dual wireless networks and some offer wired networking for the corporate LAN and wireless for the guest network. Where limitations apply, we may need to create a specific mini-LAN in the meeting room to facilitate your flexible needs.
USB policy
The more secure your environment, the less likely USB dongles are allowed to be inserted into devices brought to or used within a site. Many wireless presentation systems and BYOD/BYOM solutions rely on USB dongles to transmit and receive signals between laptop PC and receiver which is usually associated with the display screen, projector or video conferencing hardware. Where USB is barred, the alternative of WiFi is sometimes permitted.
In this case, the PC connects to WiFi in the usual way and so does the presentation or BYOD receiver. Some modern video conferencing systems now have that receiver built into their hardware but at the time of writing (November 2024), the WiFi transceivers for the laptop user are still USB, meaning that for those with a restricted USB Policy we still have to supply a separate 3rd party receiver.
Contact Us
For more information please contact our Sales Team!
VideoCentric’s extensive range of products, most of which are integrated into complete solutions for Microsoft Teams, Zoom or Google Meet, can be demonstrated at various locations across the UK, including London, Wokingham, Reading, Bracknell, Basingstoke, Leeds, and Edinburgh. Our in-house experts provide consultancy, installation and technical support to ensure you get the most out of your investment regardless of which market sector you operate in. Experience firsthand, the quality, technical innovation, quality & reliability that set our solutions apart with unique demonstrations crafted to suit your organisation and the specific needs of your meeting spaces.
