Welcome to our hybrid conferencing product comparison series, where we’ll be comparing Airtame’s conferencing offering to the three most popular conferencing approaches: wireless conferencing, Rooms systems, and traditional cabled conferencing.
Historically, conferencing was traditionally found in the boardrooms of large organizations, but as the technology evolved, it became more accessible and widely used by businesses of all sizes. Platforms like Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Google Meet, and WebEx have become industry leaders, replacing many in-person meetings in this era of hybrid work.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of video conferencing, with many businesses shifting to remote work and virtual meetings (turning it from a nice to have, to a necessity).
With this shift, several different approaches emerged. In this series, we’ll be breaking down the pros and cons of each conferencing approach.
If you’re using a cabled solution, you’ve probably run into several issues. Firstly, battery drain. How many times have you checked your battery percentage, and tried to calculate if your laptop will make it for the duration of the call? Better hope you have your charger in the meeting room. With the call running on your device, performance tends to be poor – laggy video, frozen screens, delayed audio, and the whole gamut. If the call is running on Wi-Fi (and we bet it is), performance is affected even more.
Cabled solutions also tend to be cumbersome – and not just because of the wires tangled and dangling all over. If you’re hosting the call, you need to understand the interface and control all aspects of the call, making it difficult to take notes and see participants at the same time. Screen sharing can also be tricky, as in-room participants join the call to share their personal devices. This can lead to slow performance and, of course, audio feedback loops.
That’s where Airtame comes in. By running calls through the Airtame Hub, there’s no need to worry about battery drain, and you can rely on stable performance. Our approach to hybrid conferencing means a setup where your microphone, camera, and other peripherals are connected to the Airtame Hub – meaning no more cable mess on your conference room tables from plugging them into your device. Additionally, Airtame is cross-platform, meaning it can be used with any operating system, as well as a variety of conferencing platforms.
Another advantage of Airtame is that it eliminates the need for an in-room tablet. You can control the call directly from your laptop, and through the Airtame Hub, screen sharing and participants are shown on the room’s screen – no longer cluttering the one on your device. Screen sharing is easier, too, even for in-room participants.