Ask HN: Recommendation for remote conferencing equipments | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Recommendation for remote conferencing equipments

8 pointshouqp11 comments

Hi all,

I am looking for remote video conferencing solution for the team. We need a separate standalone physical device that can be plugged into a monitor so we can call in anytime we want. Any recommendations?

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Why do you need a separate standalone device? Do your workers not have laptops? Just buy everyone who needs to video conference a decent USB headset ($20 - $60) and be done with it.

That's what we started with and we often ran into issues where one or two of the clients will stop working for unknown reason. Plus if some of the team is already in the same office room, it would weird for them to still go through the video chat from their own device.

For a teleconference room, check the usual suspects Polycom, Cisco, Vidyo, etc. You usually can have a room wired for that specifically or buy a cart and move it everywhere. Maybe have a decent room with many microphones, two HD cameras and a touchscreen interface. And a cart with less capabilities. That's what we have and it works well when the main room is occupied, we just put the cart in the middle of somewhere and people gather around.

I'd spent a good time making sure the softphone client that goes along with that solution plays well with your target systems. Sometimes the quality between Linux, OSX and Windows clients can vary a lot.

Get different software then, there's plenty of options out there these days like GoToMeeting, Slack, Skype, Highfive, etc.

If you don't want people in the same room on different chats (which still works with headsets), then you can buy a few USB room mics for the office like the Blue Snowball (~$50).

Polycom's been decent for the lower end of the spectrum but Cisco's telepresence connectivity has been incredible. Wish there was something on the lower end scale with the same quality.

Any reason why you need a physical device? Could you use an older/spare machine, connect to Zoom/Skype to the monitor and use that instead?

Thanks for the suggestion! I tried zoom, hangout, slack and Skype before on my laptop, the experience wasn't good enough for us. It's not very stable. Sometimes the mic will just stop working on the other end for unknown reason :( It can become frustrating very soon. I was hoping a dedicated device can help with this.

Sorry to hear that. I've had numerous issues with Skype connectivity but Webex on both Windows/Mac seems fine for me.

From which locations are you calling from and to? Wonder if it's a laptop issue or connectivity issue.

We are calling within south bay, so mostly like issues from the laptop. We have different OSes running on different hardwares :(

AFAIK Polycom is the industry standard. I installed lots of these during the dot-com boom long ago. Things might have changed, but a quick Google search returns similar offerings as what I was used to then.

Best of luck!

Thanks! I will check that out!

Polycom Video Conferencing. We use one at one conference room to video chat with another conference room 30 miles away. Works okay. A bit complicated for me.

General advice: always go wired on both ends when possible. This will optimize the connection so any lag will not be due to wireless transfer of data.

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