Tech Tuesday: Neat Frame
While there’s no shortage of video conferencing products for boardrooms, or for attaching to a computer, dedicated conferencing systems for personal use have scarcely existed. However, our partners at Neat have taken their framing and noise cancelling technology from their boardroom systems and packed it into a personal sized device for the modern office: the Neat Frame.
The Neat Frame is one of the most unique products to come into the video communications market over the past few years. Designed primarily for personal use, the Frame was made to bridge the gap between between large-scale video conferencing solutions and personal workspaces.
The biggest thing to note with the Neat Frame is just how many features they’ve managed to pack into such a compact device. Everything you would expect from a boardroom conferencing solution is here: a crystal clear 50 megapixel camera with auto framing, and beamforming microphones that cancel out outside noise. For use in a personal office, this provides the ability to stand up and walk around during long meetings, while still being perfectly seen and heard. The Frame also features Neat Symmetry, their patent pending framing technology that shows meeting participants equally on screen. Now, due to the Frame’s smaller screen size than what you’d normally see in a meeting room, it’s really not recommended to have more than 3 people using one of these—but, for small huddle rooms and collaboration spaces, the Frame can be a fantastic addition.
The screen that's built into the Frame is also nothing short of impressive. With 450 nits of brightness (for those of you who aren’t total geeks, that’s about the same as a MacBook Air), video calls look fantastic in any office environment. It also doubles as a whiteboard, or second screen to display documents in meetings. Having a dedicated productivity display, focusing on meetings and collaboration, can make a huge difference in office productivity.
Of course, the Frame is designed for more than just personal office use. Thanks to it’s compact footprint and easy-to-use touch interface, the Frame can easily be used as a virtual reception kiosk, help desk, or concierge. The Frame also takes full advantage of Zoom’s Workspace Reservation system, which allows it to double as a scheduling panel for hot desking—perfect for hybrid workspaces.
Workspace Reservation
Now built into Zoom, Workspace Reservation is a new feature that allows organizations to use Zoom for scheduling their hotdesking workstations, huddle rooms, boardrooms, or any other bookable space. Through the Zoom app, employees can reserve spaces for specific days or times. Then, using a display such as the Neat Frame, users can check into their reserved desk or room, and have all of their meetings available, with dedicated hardware that enables a great hybrid meeting experience for all participants.
Big thanks to Neat for sending us the Frame to check out! It’s great to see some of the huge improvements in boardroom conferencing solutions work their way into personal-sized products, and we’ve been super impressed with the audio and video quality the Frame puts out. For more information on Neat, visit their website at neat.no.
If your video collaboration systems could use a serious upgrade, get in touch—we can design and install the perfect solution for your workplace, and take your conference room to the next level.