Video Room Kits & Devices 101

Tools for Next-Generation Collaboration

Collaboration Insights

Published: July 28, 2020

Rob Scott

Publisher

The way we work has changed significantly over the years.

Not so long ago, collaboration meant joining your team members for a long-winded meeting in a stuffy conference room. Now, people are tuning into conversations with smartphones, room kits, and one-click tools for video conferencing.

The rise of trends like remote and globalized working means that antiquated systems for collaboration are no longer appropriate.

Around 59% of knowledge workers assessed by Dimension data said that the tools business leaders previously offered for collaboration simply aren’t good enough.

Old-fashioned systems that require excessive set-up and maintenance are too complicated for today’s agile workplace. Employees are searching for plug-and-play intuitive experiences that work with the systems they already use every day.

Here’s your guide to the new world of collaboration devices and room kits.

What Are Collaboration Devices and Room Kits?

When people talk about collaboration these days, they’re often referencing collaboration software. Solutions like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and RingCentral Glip are quickly becoming a crucial part of the business landscape. These tools bring people together with instant messaging, file, and screen sharing, and even video conferencing.

However, it’s important to remember that although a lot of collaboration takes place in the virtual world today, we still need devices to bring people together.

Collaboration devices and room kits are the components that supplement and support our new, changing workplace. For instance, a video conferencing solution like Zoom wouldn’t be much good without the right microphones and video cameras on each side to empower conversations.

Similarly, while today’s businesses can host webinars and training sessions through video, they still need things like high-quality cameras, digital whiteboards, and conference phones to connect with their teams.

The room kit is an increasingly popular approach to team collaboration devices and hardware. As employees become more comfortable with things like remote and distance working, the line between work and personal lives is blurring.

Your team members want their office conversations and interactions to be just as simple and immersive as the discussions they have at home. With room kits, your teams can side-step the complexity usually involved with setting up collaborative experiences.

A room kit is an all-in-one system that includes everything your team needs, from video camera technology to microphones, and monitors. The result is a complete plug-and-play device that offers the convenience of a single pane of glass for collaboration.

Collaboration Devices and Room Kits: Market Overview

According to 83% of professionals, technology is a must-have for true collaboration.

The digital landscape has changed the way that we connect on a massive scale.

Now that employees are spending more time out of the office, we need the right tools to keep us connected to colleagues and clients. Collaboration devices and kits bridge the gap between the workplace, and the anywhere worker.

Over the last few years, we’ve seen a lot of significant changes in the collaboration space prompted by these new digital environments. Perhaps the biggest trend has been towards the creation of devices and kits that are more convenient, agile, and accessible for smaller teams.

For instance, now that there are fewer team members in the office at any given time, around 73% of meetings only involve around four people. However, most companies build more than half of all conference rooms to support larger group meetings. Vendors in the AV industry are beginning to refine collaboration technology down into something smaller and easier to use.

The result is the rise of more huddle rooms, plug-and-play functionality, and interoperability with various tools. For instance, in a world where countless companies may be using different collaboration tools to stay connected, an all-in-one room kit needs to work with a variety of different software options.

Many business leaders are starting to take a more agnostic approach to the way that they build video and audio conferencing tools. Everything from your virtual whiteboard to your conferencing phone can now give you more flexibility when you’re communicating with people outside of the office.

Collaboration Devices and Room Kits Industry Trends

As our definition of collaboration in the workplace continues to change, the tools we use are evolving too. The standard collaborative toolkit, complete with a basic conference phone and speaker set, is becoming increasingly advanced.

Today’s collaboration devices still include conference phones and speakers. However, these solutions are often a lot more immersive and advanced. For instance, you may be able to get a conference phone that’s pre-certified for tools like Microsoft Teams. These devices come with screens that allow you to share content as you talk, and other handy features.

This is an example of how companies in the collaborative landscape are beginning to work more closely together. In the same vein, more AV companies are working on making their devices more “software agnostic.” This ensures that today’s companies can use the same tools and room kits regardless of which software they want to access.

Both room kits and devices are more flexible than ever. Companies today don’t necessarily want to be locked into using a single vendor for all of their collaborative conversations. Even market leaders in the industry that used to compete are working closer together these days. Microsoft and Cisco began to allow teams to use a mix-and-match set of hardware and software from both brands in 2020.

Another major trend in the collaboration devices and room kits spaces, is the quest to make full collaborative experiences more accessible to smaller business. In the past, video conferencing tools and conference rooms used to be reserved for big enterprises only.

Now that plug-and-play kits are available, smaller businesses can unlock collaborative experiences without spending a fortune on technology, maintenance, and set-up. Some vendors are even beginning to offer ideas like “Rooms as a Service”. This means that companies can pay for the technology they need on a subscription basis, without being locked into anything long-term.

Some vendors are also strengthening their focus on specific industries. This could mean creating things like compliant systems for instant video chat in a telemedicine situation.

Collaboration Devices and Room Kit End Customer Trends

The evolution of new collaboration devices and room kits is largely a response to the changing work styles of the new landscape. Collaboration has always been a critical part of running a successful company. However, in today’s digital world, we’re looking for more ways to collaborate without having to be face-to-face.

Meetings are getting smaller, with fewer people in the office to reach out to their remote colleagues. There are now around 50 million huddle rooms worldwide. This means that companies need devices and room kits specially designed for smaller spaces.

The rise of the digital workforce also means that people need devices that they can use safely and easily from home. A plug-and-play kit for collaboration and presentations means that any employee can turn a home office or coworking space into a group meeting in seconds.

However, as companies continue to focus on things like agility and simplicity with their collaboration tools and devices, it’s important to ensure that these products don’t compromise on security. Businesses need to be sure that company and employee data remains secure from any environment. That’s why many of the devices available for collaboration today come with encryption built-in.

Video cameras come with access to software that encrypts every message sent through VCaaS or web conferencing. Phone systems ensure that employees can safely use a business network without compromising on privacy and security.

All the while, innovators in the marketplace are continuing to introduce new and exciting concepts to make the workplace more immersive for every employee. Things like intelligent assistants mean that users can launch a meeting with nothing but a voice command. 4K video cameras connected with 5G technology allow for quicker, clearer video conversations.

Collaboration Devices and Room Kit Technology

Currently, studies suggest that the right collaboration tools can improve productivity by 30%.

When you’re working with a distributed team around the world, access to tools that bring you and your employees closer together makes life a lot easier. Sometimes, this means investing in video conferencing cameras specially designed for wide-angled views and huddle room spaces.

Other times, it means using virtual whiteboards that can capture information more effectively for teams watching a seminar or demonstration. The collaboration devices and room kit environment features a lot of different components, including:

Cameras: As video conferencing becomes an increasingly popular way to connect, cameras are at the heart of the collaboration device landscape. Some videos are designed specifically for high-quality images on the move. Others come built into room kits, offering things like advanced zoom features, facial feature tracking, and wide-angle lenses.
Room kits: Room kits are the all-in-one hardware solution for businesses that need access to a complete package for collaboration. These room kits often come with things like monitors, speakers, cameras, and microphones. Many of the best products on the market today are plug-and-play – perfect for smaller groups.
Headsets: Headsets are crucial for the transforming workplace. In an environment where your employee might be logging into work from anywhere, headsets offer focus and privacy. Many market-leading solutions come with features for active noise cancellation, both for the speakers and the microphones on the device.
Whiteboards and content sharing: Virtual whiteboards can save the information written on them to the cloud for later viewing. Room kits may also come with screens where people can log into their favourite collaboration apps to share content and add context to a meeting.
Conference phones: Conference phones are still a valuable part of the collaborative experience. Today’s conference phones are excellent at isolating human voices and blocking out excess noise. They can also come with things like virtual assistants to help with things like planning meetings and taking notes.

Choosing the Right Collaboration Devices Provider

Choosing the right provider for your collaboration devices and room kits can be a complex experience. There are a lot of different options out there today, from video cameras for huddle rooms, to noise-canceling headphones for at-home workers.

The good news for today’s teams is that it’s not always necessary to stick to the same vendor for every part of your collaboration kit. You can purchase your collaboration software from Microsoft and have conference calling hardware from Cisco. You might buy a headset from Jabra and use a camera from Logitech.

When choosing your room kit and collaboration device provider, start by thinking about the challenges your employees face each day. The right hardware should empower your team without leading to any extra security or training requirements. Other points to consider include:

Ease of use: Any collaboration device needs to be simple in today’s landscape. Employees are used to using innovative tools in their personal lives. Cameras, phones, and microphones need to be just as simple and intuitive as devices from the consumer world. Plug and play accessibility is crucial here.
Interoperability: Your team members probably use a range of different devices to stay connected and boost collaboration. Your chosen devices need to work perfectly with all of those tools. Make sure that your cameras, microphones, headsets, and anything else you invest in are as flexible as possible.
Security: Today’s collaborative devices and room kits need excellent security features. Take the time to find out what kind of systems the vendor put in place to protect the data that you’re transmitting through each device.

Quick and simple scalability might be a crucial consideration too. You may decide that you want to roll more of the same hardware in your office out to all of your global and remote workers. If this is the case, then you need your technology to be convenient, easy to use, and equipped with zero-touch provisioning. Don’t forget to check that things like consistent firmware updates are included as part of the purchase too.

The Future of Collaboration Devices and Room Kits

The collaborative landscape as we know it will continue to change at an incredible rate going forward. Even before the pandemic of 2020, people were spending more time away from the office and looking for more remote working opportunities. Now that we’ve experienced the benefits of remote and distance working first-hand, these trends will continue to increase.

Moving into the future, businesses will need the right systems in place to empower and enable teams wherever they choose to log into work. Already, before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the collaboration market was accelerating towards a value of $8.5 billion by 2024.

As business teams grow more diverse and distributed, the market will continue to grow for devices that help people to stay connected. Video cameras and microphones will become more effective, offering richer audio and video quality. Room kits will become more accessible, making it easier for smaller companies to empower their teams.

What’s more, today’s market leaders will also start investing in more disruptive ideas to take their devices to the next level. There are already companies out there exploring the benefits of mixed reality in meeting rooms. In the future, your collaboration toolkit might include a VR headset that allows you to step into a shared digital space with your colleagues.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning programs will make it easier for companies to create headsets that can translate languages in real-time, so that people around the world can communicate more effectively. Already, we have tools in the software landscape that can translate messages in a video conference.

New pricing models, and better integrations with the technology that companies already use will turn collaborative devices into more immersive and engaging experiences. The future of teamwork is bound to be an exciting place.

Collaboration Devices and Room Kit Resources

Digital Transformation Video Conferencing