Crestron Electronics, a global leader in workplace solutions, will demonstrate the Crestron Sightline room experience at InfoComm 2022. Sightline assembles the core platforms of Crestron, including Crestron Flex Digital Workplace Technologies, DigitalMedia Content Distribution, and Control and Management, to create the ideal meeting experience by promoting natural conversation, meeting equity, and enhanced collaboration across organizations regardless of where employees are.
In the modern work era, meetings are more successful when everyone is fully connected. For employees, this means an inclusive meeting experience that empowers everyone to participate rather than observe. For companies, this means creating meeting room environments that drive productivity and connections. While video conferencing has expanded workers’ capabilities to meet, it often leaves remote participants missing the big picture while in-room participants struggle to connect with the people next to them and pay attention to the person on the monitor. The hybrid work problems have become obvious:
- Remote participants want to clearly see who is in the meeting and hear every word, ensuring they feel they are equal contributors in the meeting.
- In-person attendees must juggle the ease of communication with others in the room while also including remote participants in the conversation.
[InfoComm 2022 Impulses: Lauren Simmen of Crestron]
To address these challenges, intelligent video solutions are at the heart of every Crestron Sightline room. Speakers are actively tracked and framed, and multiple displays offer improved visibility of remote participants, creating more immersive and engaged calls. Employers looking to design a best-in-class technology experience for their teams can apply the fundamentals of Sightline to scale for different rooms, especially in larger and more specialized spaces which have proven to be especially challenging in the hybrid world. These areas require different technologies and techniques to accommodate a greater number of participants. In a Sightline setup, key Crestron solutions collectively deliver an equitable meeting experience for every participant.
A Crestron Sightline room uniquely provides a successful meeting experience for all parties by accomplishing a few key principles:
- Makes it easier for attendees to engage in the flow of the meeting and follow the in-room dialog as the conversation moves from person to person.
- Displays a view of the entire room while simultaneously framing individual speakers using intelligent cameras and AI-driven video software for remote participants.
- Removes the cognitive element of knowing where to look by having the video of remote participants in the line of sight for in-person attendees.
- Increases visibility of remote attendees and improves natural interaction to in-person cues or non-verbal body language.
“Hybrid work has opened many opportunities and over the last two years, we have learned how to leverage technology to remain connected, even when physical proximity is not possible,” said Crestron executive vice president, global marketing, Brad Hintze. “However, this working style also creates a different subset of challenges for the meeting experience, most notably in larger rooms. Sightline delivers upon our legacy of making the complex simple; it truly creates an inclusive hybrid meeting experience in every space.”
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To achieve the optimal meeting experience for all participants, a Crestron Sightline room would include:
Crestron Flex Digital Workplace Technologies
- Multi-camera Intelligent Video (such as 1 Beyond Automate VX) brings together multiple standalone camera solutions into a fully automated experience
- Multiple camera technologies ensure the right frame is always available
- 1 Beyond AutoTracker tracks the presenter so they can freely move around
- 1 Beyond AutoFramer frames the participants, so they are the focal point of the space
- 1 Beyond PTZ cameras provide dedicated video for each participant
- Crestron Flex Video Conferencing Solutions provide a dedicated Microsoft Teams® or Zoom Rooms meeting experience for every space. BYOD capabilities provide the flexibility to choose the preferred platform.
- Crestron AirMedia wireless presentation makes it simple for participants to connect and share content instantly.
- Microphones
- Speakers
DigitalMedia Content Distribution
- Crestron DM NVX AV-over-IP technology enables you to push your content and video feeds to multiple displays throughout the room, either over the network or local to the room.
- Crestron DM Content Distribution provides content share from the network and distributes it throughout the room.
- Displays
Control and Management
- Occupancy Sensors determine when there is a presence in the room and will trigger the Crestron Control System to activate to a predetermined state.
- Crestron XiO Cloud Technology Operations Platform provides monitoring and management of all workplace technologies.
- Environmental control for lighting, shades, and temperature can be used manually or pre-programmed based on the individual needs of the space and optimal room comfort.
- Scene management delivers configuration for any type of meeting environment and room setting adjustments with a simple touch of a button.
“We all know that discovering how to enable hybrid work will require iteration and experimentation,” said Lauren Simmen, Crestron director of commercial product marketing. “The Crestron engineering team applied known solutions with existing technologies to solve for the new challenges in modern work. Everything they know to be problematic with hybrid meetings is solved by applying the fundamentals of the Sightline experience. We hope it inspires further exploration and development to deliver what is currently lacking in today’s hybrid meeting experience.”
