Last month, team collaboration giant Microsoft introduced 'Coordinated Meetings,' a feature that enables you to use Microsoft Teams Rooms and Surface Hubs in the same space. "Yes, some people are fancy enough to have both MTR’s and Surface Hubs in the same space," commented Microsoft MVP, Tom Arbuthnot, on his popular Tom Talks blog.
He called the move by Microsoft an interesting one, adding because the Surface Hub can join Teams meetings with audio and video, it's not only cool but practical, too. "But it’s not a meeting room device." It does, yet, run on a unique operating system, "this means it doesn’t/can’t run the MTR app and have MTR certified Audio and Video devices plugged straight in."
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Tom Arbuthnot[/caption]
Arbuthnot noted, there are use cases in which both solutions would get deployed in the same space. "Coordinated Meetings, otherwise known as “better together” for MTR’s and Surface Hubs lets you set up Teams Rooms and Surface Hubs so that when you join a meeting on either device."
Users can join other devices in a room with the same meeting and work together. Offering up tips on how to best use the features, Arbuthnot wrote, how you configure which devices do what depends on your environment. He does recommend taking the following actions to ensure the best possible experience. Use the microphone from Teams Room devices, which is set to 'on' by default, according to Arbuthnot. Via the Surface Hub, the feature's set to off by default but can get activated by participants. Leverage the Whiteboard technology from Microsoft's Surface Hub - his final recommendation.
"You could configure them if you prefer, but in most cases, the MTR will have a better camera and microphones and get positioned better." If you want to find out more, check out Microsoft's whitepaper on how to set up coordinated meetings with Microsoft Teams Rooms and Surface Hub.
