Best home Video Conferencing unit

[MrCheese]

I have a gen 1 Facebook Portal + which is great for doing work video conferences, however, it doesn't support MS Teams. The newer Meta Portal + does support Teams and I'm thinking of upgrading but I'm reading that Meta are discontinuing these and I'm worried that they may not be supported in the future. They seem to have removed Teams support from early gen 2 units from what I read on Reddit.

Any thoughts on the best standalone VC unit? My requirements are:

Unit with built-in screen, speakers and mic.
Support for Zoom, Webex Meet and MS Teams
Some confidence that the unit will be supported for a reasonable period of time.
Would be nice to have a built-in web browser to watch news, youtube.

One other option might be to build a custom PC, raspberry pi etc but it would have to be 100% silent.

Thoughts appreciated!

[Sheepshanks]

iPad?

[Alorotom]

I was looking for the same and saw the Meta2 but cancelled the purchase as they have pulled the plug on them.

I’ve not seen anything similar available so have just stuck with using my 27” iMac which in fairness does the job really well.

[Mr Pointy]

As suggested, iPad & use Center Stage:

https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/ipad-pro-now-a...
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212315

[Alorotom]

Mr Pointy said:

As suggested, iPad & use Center Stage:

https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/ipad-pro-now-a...
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212315

£900 is a bit excessive for a base model Pro though and centre stage doesn’t actually work that well either IMHO

[colin79666]

Have a work laptop? If so can you just run it through that? If video quality of the built in webcam isn’t good enough there are plenty better cameras you can plug in.

[fourstardan]

Sorry but why the hell do you want to invest in webcams at this sort of money being touted?

Are you into porn?

[Mr Pointy]

Alorotom said:

Mr Pointy said:

As suggested, iPad & use Center Stage:

https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/ipad-pro-now-a...
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212315

£900 is a bit excessive for a base model Pro though and centre stage doesn’t actually work that well either IMHO

Why does it have to be an iPad Pro? it could be an Air, a Gen 10, a Gen 9 or even an iPad Mini. None of these cost £900.

[MrCheese]

Thanks for the responses.

At the moment I do use an iPad for Teams but it isn’t a patch on the portal+. The great thing about that unit is it is in a fixed position with great speakers and a camera so for a zoom call I can just turn to the unit and join the conference without faffing about with webcam and screen positions, it’s an incredibly natural way of communicating. Laptops and iPads work fine but it’s an inherently compromised setup.

Maybe I should just get the new portal and hope they continue support….

[Alorotom]

Mr Pointy said:

Alorotom said:

Mr Pointy said:

As suggested, iPad & use Center Stage:

https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/ipad-pro-now-a...
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212315

£900 is a bit excessive for a base model Pro though and centre stage doesn’t actually work that well either IMHO

Why does it have to be an iPad Pro? it could be an Air, a Gen 10, a Gen 9 or even an iPad Mini. None of these cost £900.

It was you who linked the iPad Pro lol.

iPad is a great tool - just not the right tool for this job.

[MrCheese]

An update...I got a used Meta Portal Plus. Yes, it does have the Microsoft Teams app but there is a problem that makes the thing completely unusable...when you try to login with a personal account it fails with the warning "only work accounts can be used with this device". I get meeting invites to my personal email and a charitable org address, why on earth does Microsoft just make everything some unpleasant and difficult. It's no wonder everyone uses zoom....

[GuyW]

No idea if you'll find a commercial unit that'll be platform agnostic. (I have a feeling it'll sign into your Teams/Zoom/WebEx account, then to switch requires a reboot).

But something like these? - Deep pockets needed for some!

https://www.crestron.com/Products/Workspace-Soluti...

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/smart-devices/smart...

https://neat.no/frame/

Otherwise, just get a monitor, setup the webcam then use when required? Surely if it's left in the same position no faff needed?