Changing meeting rooms was a big topic at UC EXPO 2017 and we got a chance to sit down with Crestron and discover what they’re supplying to the world of collaboration. Read on for more…
To evolve the communication and collaboration environment to the next stage, we need more than just new innovations and technologies; we also need a new atmosphere for meeting rooms. One of the companies that has started to truly innovate the meeting room environment, is Crestron.
During my time at UC EXPO 2017, I was given the opportunity to sit down with Mark Ridgwell from Crestron, to discover the way that they are developing the modern meeting room space to meet the needs of ambitious customers and companies.
Introducing Crestron Mercury
The new product in the Crestron portfolio that Mark Ridgwell was promoting at UC EXPO this year, was the “Crestron Mercury™” unit. The Mercury all-in-one unit is a single tabletop device that’s designed to enable video, and audio conferencing, alongside web collaboration, and local presentations supporting BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) technologies. I asked Ridgwell to explain Mercury to me in a little more depth.
“Crestron are delighted to show Mercury which we believe is a game changer for our industry. Mercury is a collaboration product which has been specifically designed for small to medium sized meeting spaces.”
“We’ve had, and have, a lot of technology that’s specifically aimed at the larger meeting room environments (particularly from a Skype for Business environment) however Mercury is designed for smaller, huddle-room scenarios of around 2-8 people.”
Essentially, what Crestron has done with the Mercury unit, is to pull together lots of different parts of technology throughout the years that were developed by the company, and combine those ‘best-bits’ into a one-stop tabletop product for smaller businesses.
A New Audio Conferencing Device
Mercury is an audio conferencing device that gives customers the ability to connect more seamlessly. “The problem in the industry today”, commented Ridgwell, “is that a lot of small meeting environments are overlooked. Because there’s no tech in that space, there’s no way to monitor the meeting environment and see how it’s being used. By putting tech into that space, we can extract new information about how it works, how it’s functioning, and who’s using it.”
There are four great-quality 360 degree microphones built into each corner of the device, which means that everyone in the room gets great pickup, then there’s a speaker that comes out of the back. You can also connect the system to a USB device meaning that you can connect Mercury to a soft codec on a laptop. You can also take the system a step further by activating web conferencing and adding an HDMI cable to share your laptop on the rooms display and a HD camera installed in the room. The great thing is that the device connects to all the room peripherals instead of having to plug everything into your laptop.
Developing the Meeting Environment
Although the Mercury device is a primarily audio conferencing device, it’s worth noting that Crestron is a meeting environment company. With that in mind, the system is designed to make meetings more productive, and more efficient. Ideally, it presents a situation where you can just walk into a room and present information to everyone else through the screen using HDMI.
“We also have our built-in wireless presentation device, where you can come into the meeting space and present wirelessly from tablets, laptops, and mobile devices. The motion sensor at the front of the Mercury unit can sense people in the room, detect occupancy, wake the screen up, and present the meeting room information to whoever is there.”
Although, for now, users will need to host their calls through Mercury with a soft codec application, that won’t be the case for long. As Ridgwell informed me: “By the summer, we’ll have applied a firmware update to the device to enable it as an audio-only Skype for Business endpoint. We’re already certified by Microsoft, and now we’re just tweaking to make it perfect.”
On top of that, by the end of the year, the Mercury unit will become an audio and video endpoint for Skype for Business. However, Ridgwell was keen to remind me that when this integration happens, it won’t change the customer’s ability to continue using their own device, or running a soft codec through it. Even if you have decided to deploy Skype for Business from your end, you don’t have to make sure that everyone you speak to outside of the business has Skype. The system runs on a Linux-based Android operating system.
Developing Information for Small Businesses
Perhaps the most important element of the development of the Mercury unit, is the fact that it will be able to introduce analytics technology into the small meeting room. The data that Mercury collects will be passed up to the “Fusion” enterprise management software created by Crestron, which means that the company will be able to monitor how it’s functioning, and start to remotely assist people when required, running reports on assistance, utilization, and more.
“We’ll be able to give feedback to the business about how systems are being adopted by users.”
Crestron solutions can be deployed either on-premises, or through the cloud, depending on how your infrastructure works.
