Say goodbye to the traditional, slightly dusty conference room with our recap of ISE Amsterdam 2019.

UCSimple presents a comprehensive overview of three technological advances that are bound to boost your audio in large conferencing rooms, eradicate blind spots and increase meeting room efficiency.

We started visiting ISE Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) – the leading B2B trade show for professional audiovisual, electronic systems integration – nearly twelve years ago. Over the years, ISE has become one of the top expos in the world for audio, video, and Unified Communications (UC) overall.

What was once a quite nerdy place has evolved into a tech haven for modern, state-of-the art conferencing technology, and this year’s conference did not disappoint.

First Impressions

Our first impression — ISE is no longer just about the technical hardware of conferencing. It’s evolved into an arena to discover how hardware, can be integrated into your existing conferencing equipment.

The traditional, slightly dusty conference room with wooden panels has had its final day: modern, collaborative conference rooms are the new norm.

The traditional, slightly dusty conference room with wooden panels has had its final day: modern, collaborative conference rooms are the new norm.

This year, we saw additional evolution in terms of how conferencing solutions can be easily integrated into your daily work life. We also saw some future game changers that will revolutionize the way enterprises communicate and collaborate.

Crestron – multi-device solutions for modern meeting spaces

Ted Colton, Vice President of Crestron, used ISE to showcase its brand new conferencing products and once again demonstrated why the company has been a leader in conferencing hardware for years. The new Crestron Flex Devices are a significant upgrade, and will convert even the most sceptical end-user due to both their mobility and range of use cases.

Each device comes with a convenient management tool that’s intuitive to use. In addition, the devices can now be centrally set up, configured and even connected to the customer’s desired communication solution – for example from Zooms to Microsoft Teams and vice versa.

One particularly brilliant highlight is the intelligent room booking system that Crestron offers as a complete solution. If a conference room is booked for a meeting but the participants don’t join or use their meeting from this room, the system will automatically make the room available again and delete the previous booking. Talk about a Future Workplace.

Also from an installation perspective, the new systems are a milestone in conferencing technology. Instead of cumbersome cable installations for signal transmission, existing networks can be used for this purpose (pairing your UC device and control panel via LAN).

Crestron is also the first manufacturer to introduce digital signal processors certified for . This results in completely new possibilities in the audio sector, such as having arrays of ceiling microphones which better captures sound. Of course, this option plays a decisive role in large-scale conference rooms.

Logitech Tap – teamwork & communication made simple

Our second contender for market leadership this year is Logitech. During this year’s ISE the company launched its new platform „Logitech On Tap“ – the Microsoft-based conferencing solution and successor to the company’s bestseller Logitech SmartDock.

Logitech scores points with a significantly reduced installation effort (one-cable-to-the-desk solution) as well as scalability for all imaginable room designs. In addition, this system can be equipped with the new 4K PTZ Rally Plus camera, which is a “single vendor solution.”

Nureva – crystal clear audio and video quality

All good things come in threes, so we mustn’t forget to mention the new HDL 300 system from Nureva. This generates up to 6,000 virtual microphones in conference rooms. Thus, during a meeting, regardless of the speaker’s position, a consistently high quality audio transmission is guaranteed.

In addition, so-called “blind spots” can be configured to isolate specific noise-prone areas within a conference room – such as the entrance area of an auditorium or the entrance to high-traffic corridors or rooms adjacent to walking areas.

Ready for a final tip? Have you ever heard of Dolby Voice? It intelligently adapts to people and places, delivering a natural and productive meeting experience for even the most fringe seating participant.

Many new features, such as Directional Audio Capture (sound is played virtually from the direction of the speaker) and Whiteboard Focus (selection of a camera-focus area such as a whiteboard) are innovations that could be very successful in the marketplace.

You can do both

This year’s ISE shows that it’s possible to upgrade the quality of meetings from both a hardware point of view, and digitally – thanks to many new features in image and sound acquisition and processing.