Mar 08 2017 01:15 PM
@David Phillips asked me to share out experience with the Logitech SmartDock and SRSv2 in another thread, I thought I would start a new post to collect other people's experience.
We are refurbishing our head office buildings, the first floor of the first building went live 3 weeks ago, so our experience is limited at this point. This floor has about 250 desks, and now a new collection of collaboration booths, high tables, etc. For the meeting rooms we installed :-
3 x 5 person Rooms with 46" screen, SmartDock, Logitech C930E and Senheisser ML20 Speaker
1 x 9 person Room with 65" screen SmartDock and Logitech Group
2 x 14 person room with 75" screen SmartDock, Logitech Group with extension mic, extron amp and ceiling speakers
3 x 55" Surfacehubs in a variety of different settings
We bought the SmartDocks separate to the Surface Pros inside them, didn't find any issue in following the instructions to create the build, and to configure the accounts in Skype Online. We manage them in Intune, but not in OMS (too expensive!). We've configured them with E1, CloudPBX, PSTN Conferencing and a UK Domestic DialPlan. They have wired connections to our direct internet connection, not through the corporate lan, they arent domain joined.
Out staffs response has been great, it's a big step up from the ugly collection of speakerphones and TVs we had before. Sound clarity is great, Video and screen sharing are very good. At the moment I would say about 40% of our meetings are using skype, and perhaps an equal number dialing into a legacy audioconferencing provider, the balance is shifting as people discover how much clearer the audio is in Skype. Having a quality solution in every bookable space makes a huge difference, we no longer need to think much about which site a user is at when booking a meeting, just find a point where people and a room are available and let them figure out where they want to be.
The Logitech Dock seems pretty good, lots of screws but we don't want something that users will take to bits. Solid feeling, very good swivel function. It would perhaps have been easier with a line out option inside the cable section. There lots of cables going in/out of the dock but our installers have done a good job of making it neat and unmovable.
We understand that we've bought into a very new product but its been remarkably stable. We are aware of 3 devices that reached a point where they needed a reboot as they became unresponsive (we schedule a reboot each night), this typically seems to be related to connecting local devices to the hdmi in.
We've had quite a lot of difficulty getting hdmi switch boxes working reliably on the hdmi input, we wanted to provide autoswtching between hdmi and mini-dp inputs. Forcing the switch to set an appropriate Edid seems to be helping, but I'm not convinced we've totally figured it right yet.
Users have raised 2 areas in the software that could be improved. 1. when dialing out to an external conference provider they cant then connect a laptop into the screen locally. 2. They would like to be able to cancel meetings that don't show up from the device, ideally we would like them to timeout like on a meeting room system.
We're now just over 3 weeks away from our second floor going live, 15 SRS and 4 Shubs. I'll update back here with any new expereinces. Looking forward to seeing what happens as the SRSv2 app updates. DM me if you want any recomendations for installers in th UK.
Mar 08 2017 01:28 PM
Steve...
I was under the impression that the device reboots nightly. What version of SrSv2 are you running?
Mar 08 2017 01:34 PM
Mar 08 2017 02:42 PM
Mar 09 2017 06:32 AM
Mar 09 2017 12:00 PM
Mar 10 2017 06:03 AM
Mar 17 2017 01:35 AM - edited Mar 17 2017 01:44 AM
Mar 17 2017 01:35 AM - edited Mar 17 2017 01:44 AM
Hello, good article!
Can I use Logitech Smartdock to connect with users who do not have a Skype for business account?
With SFB, I can create a meeting and users can connect to the meeting as guests with the SFB Webb App, without an SFB account. Can I do the same with Smartdock? Or is it limited to SFB-to-SFB communication?
thanks
Mar 17 2017 03:37 AM
Mar 17 2017 01:05 PM
Sep 08 2017 03:29 PM - edited Sep 08 2017 03:30 PM
"1. when dialing out to an external conference provider they cant then connect a laptop into the screen locally." --- so when you're in a PSTN call via Dialpad, you cannot go back to the main menu to also select Present? :o ...'cuz this sounds like a common use case when using the room / system for a non-Skype meeting, such as Cisco WebEx.
Sep 09 2017 01:06 AM
Oct 24 2017 01:34 PM
Can you share content on the input to the display without being in an active meeting? We have a number of SMART SRSv1 systems with dedicated room PC's, and there is a 'Room PC' button to switch to the input if it is just a local collaboration and was wondering if there is same functionality in the SRSv2 with SmartDock and dedicated Room PC. Not everything is a SfB meeting, sometimes they would want to just display local workstation on screen.
Thanks,
D'arcy
Oct 24 2017 11:14 PM
Hi @Steven Collier,
You've mentioned a 75" screen. Is that by chance a 4K screen?
I'm eyeing a similiar setup but the official Logitech documetion only mentions 2x HDMI 1080/60p outputs.
Oct 27 2017 01:49 PM
Hi D'arcy, yes you can certainly do that. check out the photo below, you always have a present button which displays your content to the screen connected to the SRS.
Oct 28 2017 03:32 AM
yes @Deleted, also by default it will display the connected source when something is attached.
It will also share this content straight into the Skype meeting, although you can change this with a setting.
Oct 28 2017 03:36 AM
Most of our screens are 1080p, we have one 84" monster that is capable of 4K but the SRS drives it at 1080p.
Skype video calls are at best 720p, and the video ingest is 1080p, so I can't really see what the 4K pixels would do for you. Add on to that if it did ingest at 4K how many laptops would struggle?
Oct 28 2017 03:46 AM
Oct 28 2017 03:49 AM - edited Oct 28 2017 03:53 AM
It's probably also worth mentioning that we're recently built some rooms with other sound options to the Logitech Group. It's great for what we count as middle sized rooms, 6-14 seats, but outside that there are better options.
For very small rooms we use the Senheisser SP20 Usb speaker, it is really excellent at the price (about £100). We tried lots of alternatives and found this really gave nearly as good sound as speakers that cost £300+.
For our largest rooms we found the Logitech Group, even with extender mics wasn't good enough. It's really the speaker output that doesn't give sufficient volume, and there isn't an option to put it through external amplification. Instead we're been using the Vaddio Easy USB with ceiling mics and speakers (http://www.vaddio.com/product/easyusb-mixer). It's not SRS Certified, some comes with some risk, and far more expensive, but it's absolutely amazing. We have rooms that regularly have meetings with 30-40 people and the Vaddio plugged into the SRS provides a great experience.
Oct 28 2017 03:50 AM