Meeting room AV: which kit for which room
Nobody complains about a meeting room screen. They complain that they cannot hear the person at the far end. Audio is where rooms fail, and it is the part most often bought last.
For huddle rooms up to six people, an all-in-one bar from Yealink or Poly is enough. For rooms of six to sixteen, split the camera and the audio and add table or ceiling microphones. Above sixteen people, or in rooms with hard surfaces and high ceilings, go to ceiling microphones from Sennheiser and a separate DSP.
Cisco room systems make sense when the rest of the estate is already Cisco-managed. Samsung covers displays and signage, Epson covers projection.
Budget the audio first and the screen last. A room with a mediocre display and excellent sound is usable; the reverse is not.
Why audio decides the room
A picture that is slightly soft is annoying. Sound that drops half a sentence makes people stop contributing. In practice a remote participant will tolerate almost any video quality and almost no audio problems, which is why the microphone layout deserves more attention than the screen size.
The two things that ruin room audio are distance and reverberation. A microphone at the far end of a twelve-person table picks up the room more than the speaker. A room with glass walls, a hard floor and a plasterboard ceiling turns every voice into an echo. Neither is solved by buying a more expensive camera.
What to fit, by room size
| Room | Audio | Video and display |
|---|---|---|
| 2 to 6 people | All-in-one bar with integrated microphones | Single 55 to 65 inch display, wide-angle camera in the bar |
| 6 to 12 people | Bar plus one or two expansion microphones on the table | 65 to 75 inch display, separate camera with framing |
| 12 to 20 people | Ceiling microphone array and a DSP, ceiling or wall speakers | Dual displays or one 86 inch, PTZ camera |
| Town hall or auditorium | Ceiling array plus handheld or lapel microphones, dedicated mixing | Projection or LED wall, multiple cameras |
Where each brand fits
- Yealink covers the widest range at the most predictable price: desk phones, headsets, conference audio and complete room systems for Teams and Zoom. It is our default for standardising many rooms across many sites.
- Poly is strong on conference cameras, speakerphones and headsets, particularly in rooms that have to work with more than one meeting platform.
- Sennheiser is where we go for ceiling microphones and any room where the acoustics are working against you. It is the most expensive line item and the one that most often fixes the actual complaint.
- Cisco room systems are the natural fit when switching, wireless and security are already Cisco and you want one management plane.
- Samsung for displays, large-format screens and signage in reception and canteen areas.
- Epson for projection where a screen that size is not practical.
Teams, Zoom or both
Most of our clients standardise on Microsoft Teams because it comes with the licence they already own. Certified room systems from Yealink, Poly and Cisco are available for both Teams and Zoom, and several can switch between them.
Decide the platform before you buy the hardware, not after. A room certified for one platform can usually join a meeting on the other, but the in-room controls and the one-touch join only work properly on the platform it was set up for, and that is exactly the part users judge the room on.
The part behind the wall
A room system is a network device. It needs a wired port with enough power, a reliable path to the internet and, in a lot of buildings, a separate VLAN so that a busy guest network cannot degrade a board meeting. Rooms that drop mid-call are usually a network problem wearing an AV costume.
That is why we take the room on as one thing, cabling and network included. Design and management of the underlying network sits under managed network, and where wireless is involved we measure it first under Wi-Fi analysis.
What a finished room looks like
A room is done when someone who has never used it can walk in, press one button and be in the meeting with the far end able to hear everyone at the table. Not when the equipment is mounted.
We hand a room over with the equipment installed by trained people, a signed statement that the build follows the manufacturer instructions and is safe to use, a test call from the far end, and a one-page card in the room. Staging and load capacity are specified before anything is built, which matters more than people expect in rooms that double as event space.
The full method is on the AV and meeting rooms page.
Questions we get about this
What facility managers and IT leads ask before a room refresh.
Yealink or Poly for a Teams room?
For a standard room where you want many sites to look the same, Yealink usually wins on price and range consistency. Poly tends to win where the camera matters most or where the room has to serve more than one platform. In a room up to six people the difference is small enough that availability and your existing estate should decide.
Do we need ceiling microphones?
Only above roughly twelve people, or in any room with hard surfaces and a high ceiling where a table microphone picks up more reverberation than voice. They are the most expensive part of a room and the one that most reliably fixes the complaint that people cannot be heard.
Can you install AV in a room you did not design?
Yes. We often walk into rooms where the display and the cabling are already there and only the audio or the network needs sorting. We measure what is present, say what we would keep, and quote only the difference.
Do you support events as well as meeting rooms?
Yes. Set-up, on-site support during the event and dismantling afterwards, planned around your programme. Equipment can be rented rather than bought for one-off events, through the same contract.
Where this lands in our work
Where a room touches the rest of the estate.
Want this looked at for your own sites?
Half an hour on a call is usually enough to tell you whether we are the right party for it, and we will say so if we are not.