We had an opportunity to test the Meeting Owl from OwlLabs this past week and wanted to share our thoughts on this unique conference room technology. The $799 webcam, mic, and speaker all-in-one unit is intended to sit at the center of the conference room table. What makes the Meeting Owl worth nearly $800? If I were reviewing the device simply on the speaker and mic array, I’d say this isn’t all that exciting of an offering. There are plenty of <$200 mic/speaker combos that would perform as well or better. But, the Meeting Owl’s unique 360 camera at the top that makes the unit stand out from its peers.
When sharing video, the device segments the camera feed into zones. At the top, there is a side-to-side 360-degree view of the room, and below is either one, two or three “active speaker” zones intelligently selected by the Meeting Owl. So, when two people in the room start talking, the camera segments lower area of the camera feed to accommodate the conversation. Overall, we found the intelligence of the camera to be rather good. Infrequently, it would pause a bit too long on a speaker that had stopped talking, or incorrectly divided up the lower section, prioritizing the wrong person… but considering the alternative is physically moving the camera… it’s a nice feature that livens up the meeting experience.
Pros:
- Incredibly easy to setup and configure (under 10 minutes)
- 360 camera works as advertised
- Good quality internal mics
- Platform agnostic (works with Skype, WebEx, Zoom, Meetings, etc.)
Cons:
- The image quality isn’t great (it’s a 720p sensor, so the sections are only standard definition, or worse, and it shows)
- Split screen can be distracting when in overdrive (sometimes it moves too slowly, other times it seems to move too quickly… this may be improved with a firmware update)
- At $799, OwlLabs is in the Logitech Meetup zone. While the products are rather different, each has their pros and cons depending upon the expectations of the user.
Closing Thoughts:
Overall, we enjoyed the product and can see it being deployed in a range of spaces. It also signals a new era in intelligent conferencing technologies. The local group at Duke that purchased the device also has plans to deploy this in a classroom where Zoom will be used for hybrid teaching sessions (some students local, others remote). It will be interesting to see how the far side reacts to the automated pan/tilt of the camera and if it can keep up with some of our most active faculty. My primary complaint about the device is that the image is too blurry. Also, the 360 lens tends to have the faces centered in the lower image area. Ideally, it would crop to a few inches above the top of the head of the active speakers(s). Perhaps we’ll see an HD or 4K version in the future that addresses a few of these shortcomings.
