When it comes to hardware, people use whatever headset and camera they have, connected to wifi served by the a cheap SOHO router. More or less the stuff you use to call your parents over skype once a week.
Ironically for a big chunk of the time I've been working as an engineer, people have been falling back to consumer software instead of using broken entreprise videoconferencing.
> When it comes to hardware, people use whatever headset and camera they have, connected to wifi served by the a cheap SOHO router.
I mostly haven't noticed any huge problems here, but maybe I've just been lucky.
Now that I think of it my home WiFi has been getting worse over the years, and getting new top rated gear didn't help.
(I have seen some thread here lately about advanced troubleshooting of wireless networks and I consider getting the spectrum analyzed somehow.)
If there are meetings in person you really need to have a good conference call phone, preferably with an external mic.
Like this: https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/images/i/000/016/072/origi...
For things like screen sharing, the conference room must have a very solid connection as screen sharing typically uses a lot of bandwidth.
For the remote employee, you need:
* Solid headset. I've tried using a USB one but it had interference at terrible times. Once I was on a call presenting to the client when interference started making odd noises. Now I use a USB headset with noise canceling mic.
* Good fast reliable internet!
* Solid voice-over-ip phone if you need to talk on the "phone" a lot. I use DialPad which are the makers of UberConfrence. The quality is _way_ better than using Google Voice, skype, etc.
When my mobile phone has less latency and better sound, I know my VoIP is screwed.
It’s been years since I went through the trouble of setting one up for a conference call. These days I just use my Sony Bluetooth headphones. IIRC, the difficulty with most (not DAW or professional audio) software on Mac and any external audio interface, is that it doesn’t actually allow selecting which input to use, only the device. So while I might select “RME Fireface 802” in Chrome as the input device, I can’t select Input 1, 9, or 12 as the input channel to use for microphone. This used to be possible with apps like Soundflower, though, I’m not sure what the best solution is nowadays.
UA DSP for conference calls, now wouldn’t that be something. Ha-ha.
The difference between the microphones is stunning, I thought I was not going to be able to tell the difference, but the Neumann is extremely more, should I say, articulate? the Rode sounds "stiff." But nobody is going to be singing over a conference call, true.