The Essential Hybrid Working Meeting Room Checklist for Large and Extra Large (XL) Conference Rooms

In today’s smart workplace, hybrid working conference rooms have become essential for bringing on-site and remote employees together at the same time.

To enable clear communications and effective visual collaboration, this checklist will help you to design an audio-visual (AV) system that works for even the most challenging large and extra-large (XL) conference room spaces.

Create the Right Large Conference Room Layout and Smart Meeting Environment

Think about how you are going to use your large or XL conference room as part of the smart workplace, and what type of hybrid work it will be used for: board meetings, team projects, collaboration space or multi-purpose.

Consider the décor and lighting. Plan where furniture and equipment will be placed to give participants the most inclusive and immersive hybrid meeting experience. Focus on the quality, simplicity and scalability of AV and video conferencing technology.

Ultra-wide Display for Intelligent Meeting Rooms

Having the right sized display enables more effective conference meetings. Too small and you risk losing visibility for all attendees. Too large a display can be overwhelming and distracting.

Ultra-wide 21:9 displays from a brand like Jupiter are available in a range of sizes, with touchscreen and non-touch versions. This makes it easier to view attendees and share multiple applications, such as presentation slides and a whiteboard, simultaneously.

Audio for Large and XL Room Video Conference Meetings

Large and XL conference rooms present bigger audio challenges than smaller intelligent meeting rooms. It is important everyone can be heard, including those at the back of the room or participating remotely.

Conference Microphones on the desk have limited range and those suspended from ceilings can look ugly. Cabled mic extensions struggle to deliver great audio in bigger conference rooms.

Conference Room Speakers can make the difference between a poor and a powerful large conference room experience. Quality of sound, acoustics and tone can be achieved with the right set up.

Soundbars from Nureva combine high-quality speakers with patented Microphone Mist™ technology to deliver flexible whole room pick-up. Every participant can be heard, in room or remote.

Smart Meeting Room Cameras for Larger Spaces

The latest AI-driven technology can create a cinematic experience for large conference room meetings.

Intelligent cameras from Huddly capture everyone in the room and adapt framing to continually offer the best view. A built in AI ‘director’ edits meetings in real time – not just focusing on the speaker but also showing non-verbal reactions and responses. It helps remote participants feel immersed and engaged.

Huddly cameras can also capture flipchart notes or whiteboard drawings so everyone has a clear view of them.

Video Conferencing Software for Effective Hybrid Meetings and Visual Collaboration

To facilitate virtual meetings many organisations choose Microsoft Teams and use ‘Signature’ Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) to enhance the hybrid meeting experience in large or XL conference rooms.

With this approach, the space is designed around people for more engaging and effective visual collaboration. Everyone is connected to each other and the content: presentations paired with co-operative chats, digital canvases shared for creativity and innovation.

One Touch Join for BYOD and Seamless Hybrid Meetings in Large Conference Rooms

Hybrid meeting organisers and participants want to join meetings quickly and easily, whatever device they are using. Microsoft Teams and Mago provide ‘one touch join’ functionality to make BYOD life simpler, in room and remote.

Efficient Large Conference Room Booking System

A smart room booking solution like GoBright enables employees to book, amend or cancel meetings in the most suitable conference room space – from wherever they are. GoBright also integrates with Microsoft Teams to include a time-saving automatic Teams link invite to intended participants.

Capture Data for Performance Analytics

To deliver the best hybrid working meeting room experience, make best use of available space and deliver the strongest ROI, it pays to use data analytics.

Smart video conferencing technology allows each AV element to capture purposeful data around the use of intelligent meeting rooms. Organisations can use a tool like Microsoft’s Power BI to connect the different pieces of information into coherent, shareable and interactive insights, including graphs and charts.

Create Future-Proof Video Conferencing for Large Conference Rooms and XL Rooms

The best Intelligent meeting room solutions for hybrid working conference meetings are scalable and adapt easily to large or XL meeting rooms.

ProAV or average ‘all-in-one’ solutions – due to cost, complexity or inadequate quality – may not be the best choice. Consider how well your AV equipment will work with other video conferencing components.

When designing and budgeting for hybrid working meeting rooms, think beyond the initial investment and consider longer term requirements, including scalability. For example, capability to improve performance through software upgrades can save on future video conferencing hardware costs.

Advice from smart workplace experts like Ascentae can help an organisation make better-informed decisions.