Upgrading Your Workspace With Huddle Room Solutions

Huddle Room Solutions are Designed for the Modern Meeting

Huddle rooms have quickly transitioned from a novelty to a must-have, and that’s likely due to how U.S. companies organize their meetings. According to a study published in the Wall Street Journal, 73 percent of corporate meetings only involve between two and four people. That’s the exact range that huddle room solutions are designed for, and because so many meetings fit best in these spaces, businesses should consider how to make their huddle rooms more effective. AV technology is a must for huddle rooms, and most solutions would be impossible without it. This doesn’t pose much of an obstacle to decision makers, though, because AV technology manufacturers are building solutions specifically for the huddle room.

The Technology That Drives Huddle Room Solutions

Huddle rooms are compact spaces and are designed for six or fewer people. They can be used for most meetings, but they excel in settings where impromptu gatherings are the norm. If a company has an array of huddle rooms to choose from, teams can organize and execute meetings without prior planning, and without fear that there won’t be an available space. As such, huddle room solutions must be agile, easy to install, easy to use and easy to maintain. There’s plenty of technology that meets these requirements, and some of the most promising hardware includes:

1. The Crestron Flex series – The Crestron Flex series is designed to be as simple as possible to use. It includes four products: The P100, the M100, the B100 and the C100. All four work together to deliver a consistent experience, no matter where the meeting is taking place.

The P100 is a voice-over-IP desk phone that natively runs Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams. It comes with a 7-in. color touch screen and can deliver HD quality sound, making for a strong user experience. The P100’s touch screen places the call management functions front and center, so meeting leaders can keep their focus on the discussion even when muting a call participant or pairing a device to the P100. Like all Flex devices, the P100 can be maintained using Crestron’s XiO Cloud.

The M100 facilitates audio and video conferencing and is designed for smaller spaces like huddle rooms. It is compact and easy to install, usually just going on top of the meeting table. The M100 also runs Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business and is also compatible with Zoom. It can be used for one-button meeting joining or conference calling and can also provide room scheduling information.

The B100 is a front of room solution that combines a 10-inch touchscreen with a mountable sound bar. Like the M100, the B100 can be used for one button joining and for room scheduling, giving it excellent usability and functionality. The B100 comes with an integrated 4K camera that offers auto zooming and people counting, along with high quality video.

The C100 is Crestron’s flagship unified communications product. It can be scaled up or down for any room and is ready to use right out of the box, with the video codec already provided. It comes with a 10-inch touchscreen that can be used with various room and call controls. Like other Crestron Flex series products, it is compatible with Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams.

2. The Poly Studio – Poly (formerly Polycom) has long been a leader in conferencing technology, and the Poly Studio is the company’s approach to the huddle room. The Poly Studio is a USB sound bar that can be used with HD and 4K digital displays. It is compact, easy to mount and configure, so it’s ready to go right away. It’s also compatible with Microsoft Teams, Skype for Business, Zoom, Cisco Webex and GoToMeeting, among other conferencing options.

Polycom’s products are lauded for their excellent audio quality, largely thanks to the company’s Acoustic Fence and NoiseBlock features, which identify and neutralize unwanted ambient sounds. These features are integrated into the Poly Studio, so every call offers crystal clear audio.

The Poly Studio is also designed with sophisticated video features. For example, the onboard 4K camera automatically frames participants when they speak and can track them if they move around the room. The Poly Studio is the first to add this feature.

3. The Clevertouch – All huddle room solutions should include a display, and an interactive display is even better. The Clevertouch is a leading interactive flat panel brand, with extensive whiteboarding and presentation capabilities. The Clevertouch has been proven in many environments, including education and governmental facilities, so it is robust enough for the office.

The Clevertouch comes with an onboard processor and hard drive and uses an Android-inspired interface that most people will grasp intuitively. The Clevertouch is a perfect collaboration and brainstorming medium, as it can be used for conferencing and for inspired whiteboarding. With the Clevertouch’s built in browser, presenters can jump to the internet to grab an image or video and bring it into a whiteboarding session for comparison or study. Another example - a brochure or concept drawing can be brought into the display’s whiteboarding software and annotated over for note-taking purposes. The Clevertouch makes this easy with simple touch controls, and the display can be controlled with several simultaneous touch points, so multiple team members can present at once.

As a powerful, versatile display, the Clevertouch can also serve as digital signage or as an instant messaging tool, multiplying its functionality.

Huddle room solutions must deliver better communications, ease of use and room control functionality. This ensures the huddle room is an efficient, effective part of a company’s collaborative efforts. Knowing this, technology manufacturers have developed an array of solutions perfect for the huddle room, and perfect for enhancing collaboration.