With half of all employees working remotely, the need for video conferencing has exploded. Today, an employee should no longer have to wonder whether a room is equipped for a video call. The answer is yes: on our latest assignment, we were able to try out the rollout of BYOD video conferencing rooms, with the aim of giving employees video conferencing rooms that are simple and effective to use.
But first of all, what is a BYOD room?
A BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) room is a conference or meeting room in which participants are invited to use their own devices (PC, Mac, smartphone, tablet…) to take part in an online meeting. These devices therefore carry “the intelligence of the room” and replace (or complement) the codec located in the room. Users can use any online conferencing system such as Teams, Zoom, Google Meet, etc.
It is a space with all the equipment needed for a quality video conference: a screen, a camera and a sound capture and playback system. In a BYOD room, the codec (= the room PC) becomes optional.
What sets a BYOD room apart from a traditional video conferencing room is that the user’s own device hosts the meeting instead of an integrated system (a Microsoft Teams Room, for example).
This BYOD system offers several advantages over a standalone room:
- Interoperability: a BYOD room is not tied to any one video conferencing system; anything the device can do can be used in the room (Teams, Google Meet, Webex…)
- Openness to the outside: a BYOD room allows any user with a laptop, whether internal or external to the company, to make full use of the video conferencing room’s equipment
- Lower acquisition costs: a BYOD room is less expensive than a standalone room, because a BYOD room has no intelligence in the room, which makes it possible to:
- equip small spaces at a lower cost (allow less than 1,000 euros);
- equip more small rooms in your premises for greater user comfort.
- Availability: in the event of an incident, BYOD rooms are generally much simpler to get back up and running than a video conferencing room with an integrated system, which provides better service continuity for users.
But it can also have several drawbacks:
- It does not allow a user to walk into a video conferencing room “empty-handed”. Moreover, if the initial host leaves the room, a new device has to be connected. The overall experience is less advanced than a Teams meeting in a room with an MTR (Microsoft Teams Room).
- A BYOD solution does not allow equipment monitoring or remote maintenance of the room.
- It is not necessarily suited to every room found in a company, whether because of its size or its primary purpose, owing to the lack of room control.
- The BYOD solution does not allow touch features to work optimally with a TV designed for them.
One of our recent assignments led us to scope and manage the rollout of more than 150 meeting rooms. The BYOD system was chosen for most of this project for several reasons: first, because there was a large number of small rooms to equip in the building, but also because the client’s work environment matched the way the BYOD system works:
- All employees have a laptop
- The client hosts external entities on its site
- The site has a “full Wi-Fi” network
- Simplified incident reporting procedures for users, with regular equipment checks by a technician
We chose two solutions: wired BYOD and wireless BYOD.
- Wired, via USB-C, is a reliable and inexpensive connection. It suits standard rooms for up to 6/8 people (a single table, seated participants)
- When the room layout does not allow a wired BYOD system because of its size or layout, we recommend a wireless system (e.g. ClickShare).
- Among wireless systems, there are wireless-only systems and wireless systems with a USB dongle
- We chose the second option because we used the ClickShare system. ClickShare is a portable unit that has to be plugged into the computer to use the room’s equipment. But why choose ClickShare rather than another system? The answer is simple: unlike other systems, ClickShare does not require any software to be installed, which makes it easier to integrate the solution within the company.
- For this client, we chose the ClickShare solution with a physical button, which is more expensive than other solutions but allows external users to connect without having to install an application on their PC
We then had to establish a typology based on room size:
- Small room: a large PC monitor (27/32″) with an integrated docking station, a camera and a speaker
- Medium room: a 55″ screen with an integrated docking station, a camera and a speaker
- Large room: a 75″ screen with an integrated docking station or a ClickShare, a camera and a speaker
Based on our experience, we advise against BYOD for rooms of more than 12 people; an integrated system should be preferred. Of course, these recommendations are generic and also depend on the size of the room and the end need.
What we can take away from this solution is that it offers many advantages. Users no longer have to ask themselves “Will I find an equipped room?”, since its cost makes it possible to equip every room in the building.
However, it is not suited to every environment and therefore requires some upfront thinking about how the room will be used.
To date, a balance that seems relevant to us:
- Equip small rooms (5 people maximum) with a BYOD solution.
Articles in the same series
Improving the workspace of your employees
Following on from our first article on video conferencing rooms, in this second part we look at workstations, an essential component within companies to guarantee a pleasant and suitable environment for employees.
How can you rethink your workstations? How can you roll them out on a large scale? These are the two main questions we try to answer, drawing on our own experience.