Logitech MeetUp review: A high-quality small-room conference camera

meeting areas within the modern workplace latitude from professional video conferencing amenities and massive boardrooms, via standard meeting rooms to so-known as ‘huddle rooms’. The latter are casual areas — in all probability even a minimally segregated nook of an open-plan workplace — the place impromptu meetings will also be held. Analyst enterprise Wainhouse analysis calls them “the watercooler for the subsequent-era worker.”

In fresh years Logitech’s business neighborhood has incessantly developed a portfolio of notebook-primarily based video conferencing endpoints protecting a range of assembly spaces. These birth with the £249.ninety nine BCC950, designed for companies of up to 4 individuals, topping out with community, which services assembly rooms with up to 20 individuals and charges between £999 and £1,248. in the core there’s the cylindrical connect, a transportable unit designed for huddle rooms serving round 6 americans that fees £449.99.

Logitech’s latest product is MeetUp, an alternative choice to join for small meeting rooms and huddle rooms, providing a greater familiar (however less moveable) kind factor, a higher spec — and a far better £999 rate. (All fees consist of UK VAT).

now we have all persisted conferences the place time has been wasted hooking laptops as much as recalcitrant video-conferencing apparatus, which then fails to work with the on-board collaboration software, or supplies sub-normal audio-visual performance and/or lacks the necessary flexibility and handle. let’s examine how Logitech’s MeetUp shapes up.

MeetUp measures 400mm by way of 104mm through 85m and weighs 1.04kg. at the returned (l-r) there is a remote manage pairing button, a safety slot, a USB-C port, the power enter and a connector for the not obligatory external extension microphone.

pictures: Logitech

Design

MeetUp definitely seems like an oversized webcam, with a imperative digital camera flanked by using ‘ears’ containing microphones, a speaker and different add-ons. It measures 400mm extensive with the aid of 104mm high by 85m deep, weighs 1.04kg and is powered by means of an AC adapter. It connects to a pc or computing device by means of a prolonged (5m/16ft) USB-C to USB 2.0 cable. additionally within the box is a slim, 83mm-rectangular RF far flung handle, a wall mount package and a broadcast setup book.

You could not name MeetUp a ‘transportable’ piece of package for the reason that it requires mains vigour, however’s actually compact and light-weight satisfactory to be transportable between assembly areas in case your enterprise is never up for purchasing distinct £1,000 instruments. Logitech’s join is a more moveable option as it’s smaller and lighter, and may work on battery power — although it also has a reduce-resolution camera with a narrower container of view.

The non-compulsory tv mount fees £89.99 ($ seventy nine).

picture: Logitech

correct ZDNET reports

MeetUp can stand alone on its built-in tiltable stand, or you can cling it on the presented wall mount. when you are prepared to fork out a different £89.ninety nine, there may be an optional mount that allows you to droop the convention camera from a television or display screen.

Setup is simple: just plug in the equipment and fasten it to your computing device (windows 7 or higher), Mac (macOS 10.10 or larger) or Chromebook (edition 29.0.1547.70, Platform 4319.seventy nine.0) by means of the USB cable and you’re respectable to head, when you’ve prompt your conferencing application to work with it. MeetUp has ‘company-grade’ certification for Skype for company and Cisco Jabber, and boasts ‘improved integration’ with BlueJeans, Broadsoft, LifeSize Cloud, Vidyo and Zoom.

there is no control software installed by using default, for adjusting things like brightness, contrast, color depth and white steadiness, however you could download this, and extra, from Logitech’s support web page.

MeetUp comes with a slim, square RF far off; that you may also download a free iOS or Android app to do the identical job over Bluetooth. There are no controls on the camera itself.

photographs: Logitech & Charles McLellan/ZDNet

The faraway handle is a coaster-sized machine powered with the aid of two CR2032 batteries that links to the MeetUp machine by the use of Bluetooth. there’s a button on the returned of the camera unit that puts it into pairing mode on a long press: do the same with the Bluetooth button on the faraway itself and it be performed. The remaining buttons on the far off are: microphone mute; name reply; name end; extent up/down; zoom in/out; camera pan/tilt; digital camera home; and two configurable preset buttons.

should you mislay the far flung, you can also manage the MeetUp digicam remotely by the use of your iOS or Android smartphone in case you down load the Logitech ConferenceCam tender faraway from the appropriate app keep.

features

MeetUp’s digicam is a motorised pan-tilt-zoom unit helping as much as UltraHD 4K video (2160p) at 30 frames per 2nd (fps) over a USB three.0 cable (be aware that Logitech substances a USB 2.0 cable, which simplest helps up to full HD 1080p video). The camera’s Logitech-designed lens captures a wide-angle one hundred twenty-degree box of view with minimal distortion, and pans an additional 25 degrees to the left and appropriate, overlaying one hundred seventy levels average. It zooms to 5x, but notice that this is digital zoom so there may be some lack of picture great: in case you desire ‘lossless’ optical zoom (to 10x), you’re searching at the more expensive neighborhood product. Panning, zooming and tilting all work easily below far off handle, both by the use of the provided unit and the usage of the smartphone app.

The optional puck-like extension mic costs £229 ($ 219.99) and extends MeetUp’s range to 4.2m (14ft).

photo: Logitech

Three beamforming, noise-setting apart mics pick up audio within various 2.4 metres (eight toes) and should cater for up to 6 people. if you need more coverage, an non-compulsory extension mic will increase the latitude to four.2m (14ft) and contributors as much as eight individuals, however it’ll cost you a hefty £229 added. The built-in speaker sits in an acoustically suspended enclosure and is ‘voice optimised’, the usage of signal processing thoughts like voice undertaking detection (VAD) and microphone heritage noise suppression.

performance

We tested Logitech’s MeetUp the usage of Skype on windows 10 and macOS, and Google Hangouts on home windows 10. In all check eventualities, setup and operation have been problem-free. image nice is good, the digicam’s wide viewing angle truly helps to keep away from the want for meeting members to huddle together to get in shot, and the whole-duplex audio subsystem coped well with near- and much-conclusion contributors conversing simultaneously.

we would choose it if the control utility installed instantly when the digital camera unit become plugged in, in preference to having to go to Logitech’s aid web site and down load it, however it is a fairly minor gripe. Optical in preference to digital zoom would be preferable too, although that could possible raise the charge, which is already on the steep aspect.

The MeetUp handle utility is a free down load from Logitech’s assist site.

picture: Charles McLellan/ZDNet

Conclusions

If meeting space is tight, and your IT finances a bit of less so, Logitech’s £999 ($ 899 within the US) MeetUp conference camera matches the invoice for conferences with 6-eight participants.

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