As co-owner and solution lead at Symity, where we specialise in Skype for Business telephony and video solutions and after a fair bit of involvement in Skype Room Systems I thought it worth putting my thoughts down on paper about the various SRS options out there.

The Skype Room System has now been around for 1-2 years and is getting a really good foot hold in the video meeting room market, but to date has been better suited to smaller meeting room spaces, courtesy of the USB audio peripherals generally being of lower specification. However, the SRS market is moving on and a greater range of SRS options and peripherals are becoming available every quarter, particularly from Logitech which seems to have grabbed the lion’s share of the market.

Here’s a quick overview of the key features that are common to all SRS:

• Login based on Skype for Business Exchange room accounts
• Simple optimised Skype for Business based touch screen experience that is easily understood by users
• Device and associated room bookable from Outlook
• Ad hoc meet now meetings from the console
• Directory lookup
• IM messaging within a call
• Click to join meetings
• Participant controls in a meeting (mute, remove user, lock spotlight)
• HD audio and video calling
• PSTN calling (meaning the conference phone can be replaced)
• Multi person viewing based on the active speaker video stream (limit of 4 viewable participants)
• Content share both from in room users and from remote Skype for Business participants
• Viewing of PowerPoint uploaded content
• Support for dual screens with video on one screen and content on the second screen
• Fully supports MS Teams client and the above features
• Sweet spot of small to medium sized meeting rooms (4 through 12 person)
• Potential for large rooms through the availability of newer USB audio system
• Potential for complex room support (lecture theatre, split rooms, training room etc) with ceiling speakers, ceiling mics, lapel mics through the addition of higher end integration equipment

Here’s a few key items that other VC systems support that the SRS codecs do not support:

• H323 or standards based SIP calling
  • A video interop service like Pexip is required for this
• Whiteboarding or polls
• Front of room touch screen displays
• Camera controls via the console
• Wireless content sharing (unless you join a call via Skype for Business and share content)

At Symity, we’ve been rolling out Logitech SRS v2 for a while now and bar some early reliability issues, which have been actively worked by MS, the devices have been really popular due to the ease of use for end users. This is a very cost effective way to video enable huddle and small through large meeting spaces with Skype for Business video.

I’ve recently had the opportunity to put 3 SRS systems side by side to see how they fair against each other, courtesy of Tech Data Maverick. I’ve listed all of the features that I consider to be key differentiators on the SRS platforms in the table below, there’s plenty to consider when selecting the best system for your meeting room:

Here are some useful web links to the devices:

Lenovo ThinkSmart 500 – https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/virtual-reality-and-smart-devices/smart-office/thinksmart/Hub-500/p/11SP1TSH500

HP Elite Slice – http://h20195.www2.hp.com/v2/getpdf.aspx/c05966671.pdf & https://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp/hp-elite-slice-p-3zh60ut-aba-1

Logitech SRS – https://www.logitech.com/assets/64799/16/smartdockdatasheetweb.ENG.pdf & https://www.logitech.com/en-gb/product/smartdock

Having looked at all the options, due to the use of the same SRS app on each system the end user experience is near enough identical on the devices, so the key differentiators really comes down to:

Room Size Suitability (small, medium and large)

All of the SRS devices work very well in a small room but for larger rooms you need to select the correct peripherals and this is where it is key to recognise that the choice of speakers, mics and camera are based on room size. Our approach is to work with either Logitech or Polycom devices to provide these solutions as they provide the market leading solutions in these spaces and here’s how we typically build the AV peripherals:

• Huddle Room
  • Logitech MeetUp due to it’s all in one build, super wide angle camera perfect for small spaces, excellent mic and speaker
• Medium room
  • Logitech Group with PTZ Pro for good audio and video (zoom camera) for a budget conscious room
  • Logitech Rally camera for excellent video, including auto participant framing, combined with the Polycom Trio for a really good audio experience
• Large room
  • Logitech Rally camera for excellent video, including auto participant framing, combined with the Polycom Trio and extender mics for larger room mic pick up

It’s also well worth noting that Polycom also provide an SRS model under the MSR100 to MSR500 branding based on a range of packaged camera and audio options, full details below. We’ve packaged the Trio camera with other SRS systems on a number of occasions as it offers such good audio.

Here are a few pictures showing the key areas of interest of the three different solutions I tested:

	Lenovo ThinkSmart 500	HP Elite Slice	Logitech SRS V2
SRS Components	Simple solution, one piece of kit!	Many components, but easy to slot together Touch screen Codec and audio Wireless HDMI sender Wireless HDMI receiver Connector cable	SRS dock with extra options: SmartDock Flex MeetUp camera
SRS in Action
Cabling Solutions	Robust but untidy cabling	Robust cabling, but not very elegant. The outer dock does slide over the top of the actual connectors so it’s not quite as messy as my picture implies.	The simplest cabling solution with desktop HDM, desktop USB, cat 6 umbilical cable and network. The desktop USB is a special feature of the SmartDock Flex allowing the USB camera, audio and HDMI to be passed direct through to the connected PC so you can use your laptop with smart VC room peripherals if you want! Think guest PC with Zoom, WebEx, BlueJeans etc. requiring in room peripherals.
Cabling Solutions
Presence Status	Neat touch showing in room participants whether they are in a call.
Table Screen Angles

If you want more info on SRS then Graham Walsh has written a good overview:

Skype Meeting Broadcast – Working with 3rd Party VTC to Present Content