The What: Yamaha Unified Communications is now shipping the YVC-330 portable USB and Bluetooth speakerphone.
The What Else: The latest addition to Yamaha’s portable speakerphone family, the YVC-330 virtual meeting solution features Yamaha’s new SoundCap technology. SoundCap is specifically engineered to convert background noise prevalent in open workspaces into a signal that makes the meeting sound as good as being in a quiet conference room. Now end-users can confidently hold spontaneous meetings anywhere, including environments that have traditionally deterred collaboration.
To further enable a clear, superior conference call and prevent unnecessary sound from being transmitted, the YVC-330 also features an automatic mute function, which engages when participants are not speaking. This self-silencing feature enhances the performance of Yamaha’s Human Voice Activity Detection technology, which instantly distinguishes human voices from other sounds. In addition, the SoundCap technology offers an auto-speaker volume adjustment, which regulates the volume to ambient noise levels and is suited for maintaining speech privacy. With the self-volume balancer function, remote conferences can be conducted seamlessly without being intrusive to those in the vicinity.
“Ask anyone who has tried to meet in an open environment, and they’ll tell you how difficult it is to be heard over the din in the room—from people talking to phones ringing and printers whirring—which isn’t conducive for clear, productive meetings and can be incredibly frustrating for all participants,” said Michael Fitch, vice president of global sales and marketing at Yamaha Unified Communications. “For those reasons, a good meeting experience has meant hunting down and reserving a quiet, unoccupied space, which may not be feasible for spontaneous meetings. The YVC-330’s SoundCap technology was designed to make any open space—even a cafe—a truly multipurpose powerhouse, regardless of the less-than-ideal noise that may be present.”
The Bottom Line: Thanks to its Far Field Noise Reduction (FFNR), Yamaha’s SoundCap technology zeros in and captures only the voices of speakers sitting around the meeting table. It effectively removes other noise, allowing participants at the other end of the call to focus on the conversation. Featuring USB, Bluetooth, NFC connections, and power through its USB cable, the YVC-330’s portable design makes it well suited for setting up high-quality calls from any area of a workspace—all without the cost of dedicated equipment.
