The Cisco Room Series is a video conferencing solution that wakes up when users walk into a meeting room where it is installed and provides theater-quality voice and video, as well as content sharing from personal devices. For small to medium rooms with 6-8 people, there's Cisco Room 55, and for larger rooms of 7-14 people there's Cisco Room Kit (camera and codec in one device) and Cisco Kit Plus (separate codec plus and quad camera). Any of these systems can be run in the cloud or on-premises.
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Polycom RealPresence Group Series
Score 6.0 out of 10
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The Polycom RealPresence Group Series is a video conferencing codec that connects to a standards-based video conferencing infrastructure to allow users to make video conference calls. There are three products in the series – RealPresence Group 300, RealPresence Group 500, and RealPresence Group 700. It is certified to use with Office 365 and Skype for Business.
We explored Polycom, Logi and DTEN devices with Microsoft Teams meetings before testing to Cisco Webex Room Series. The experience with Cisco Webex Room Series is certainly better. The analytics are certainly better and it can integrates better with Cisco on-premises servers by …
These were provided before but the Cisco Room Series is easy to deploy and manage. They provide good value for money with quality products that work and last longer than the other competitors. Clients has less support issues as the Cisco products continue to work and function …
We were using Polycom group series and poly studio earlier for P2P meetings but after covid scenario totally changed, we are using MS Teams as a main platform for meetings & messaging. Now, the challenge for us to join teams meeting from VC devices. Gradually online meetings …
[Cisco] Webex Room [Series] devices are the most advanced devices for customer and local IT satisfaction. The installation is so simple and easy that the nearly anybody is able to install the device. Cisco takes care of software updates and monitoring. If a system has a …
Cisco Webex Room Series has the largest range of room options in a suite that is cohesive, global, and centralized. The hardware has a long service life [and] is quick to deploy, reliable, and easy to manage.
[Out of] Polycom [RealPresence Group Series] Studio systems and [the] G7500, I prefer the [Cisco] Webex [Room Series] devices and management capabilities.
The ability of the Cisco Webex Room Series to integrate with other Cisco infrastructure products greatly improves the support and maintenance we can provide.
Its a fantastic software and hardware. However from time to time as tech improves, these may require a facelift. Maybe a subscription based model could work better so that it can be used widely instead of purchasing it at a full price. It may not be easily customizable for smaller businesses. It is very useful for large scale organizations that are spread out and need live meetings with a better video support.
If you're always working in the Polycom ecosystem then the Group Series codecs are reliable and the quality of the camera and microphones are extremely good. However, the system relies heavily on either having onsite server technology and/or cloud based bridging capability. In addition, the peripherals like cameras and microphones are quite expensive. Maintenance and support costs also make the ongoing investment a costly one
Cisco Room kits, it's a video conferencing system, so it has the, compared to the old systems where you use a webcam in a conference room, we don't see the person, the participants in the room. So with the installation of this kind of devices, it has a speaker fracking. So you can see the person, it clearly captures the speaker, whoever. So let's say that are 15, 20, people are sitting in a room if someone is speaking among them. So this camera is actually focused that person, so we can see that person. And it just shifts from one person to other based on the speaker and the webcam. If you're going back in the old days, like a webcam, using a webcam, it just gives an overview of the room. If someone is speaking, you don't know who is speaking unless you know the voice. So this is much greater. And you have so many other features like digital signage, you can display signage on the, so there's a lot of other features out there. So those are cool features I would say.
Perhaps any downside I might see is not necessarily with this product, it's more interoperability with other products. And I think these are all roadmap items that are being addressed. For instance, when you're in a Cisco meeting, it's not as feature rich as it might be as if you joined from a computer. However, as I said, these seem to be roadmap items which are coming along soon. Things like integration with the text or chat rather in a meeting, and also whiteboard integration.
The only issue that we have experienced with Polycom RealPresence Group Series is the speed dial functionality. When attempting to use the speed dial buttons, the system occasionally sends a call through the computer system, not the phone. While the computer call option is valuable, not everyone can answer calls that way and we have had to do a manual lookup of an extension and call back when that happens.
By the time we are up for an upgrade, this particular series of products might not even been in the market. The typical product cycle for such products in the market are about 5 years. More importantly, the codec supported by such devices may also change by the time we are up for an upgrade. Even so, getting this system to a level of functionality we require was a frustrating ordeal that I do not look forward to during the next cycle.
A lot of the features are really easy. You can just click connect and you're in. But using all of these other integrations and all these other features that are there, it's kind of the blind leading the blind as to how we use it. So it's probably the downside of it.
The directory is slightly dated and unless you have a Skype for Business integration license, dialing users into a call is difficult. The Group Series Remote whilst minimalistic is actually more difficult to use than the previous HDX remote. Having to recharge the battery on the group series remote is both annoying and difficult as if you do not keep on top of it, you will be faced with a situation where the remote is not working and then have to try and find another one. Not ideal if you need to start a video call (assuming auto join has not been enabled in the admin portal).
Cisco has always stood out for the excellent support and documentation on its products, this is one of the reasons why they are so well positioned. The means by which you can create a case and the response times are very good. I especially like the support through the Webex teams.
I can't say I've needed support more than a handful of times. One was for trying to connect a Polycom Conference phone and a Real Presence together. After a few months, we came to the conclusion it wasn't possible, that was the only frustrating occurance with support. Any other time if we needed to RMA a device, it was very smooth.
As a partner, I always used mainly Cisco products and offered them to my customers. I have personal experience with Avaya, Team and polycom but non of them provided me with the Premium feelings which Cisco does. Even the product quality and look of the product by itself gives you the premium experience. But I want to mention that Polycom has some features and easy setup which Cisco lacks sometimes. It is mainly 3rd party integration.
The Polycom RealPresence Group Series was top of the line. It had a lot more features as well as the ability to integrate with Microsoft Teams. With Highfive, you had to pay to keep the device running and it was more like renting it. Although we pay maintenance with Polycom we will own the devices. The Highfive camera also didn't move. Lifesize was comparable but it did not integrate with Microsoft Teams at the time. It may as of now, I am not sure.
Once pexip integrates Polycom/skype this will be a big win for us due to the RPTouch integrating the "one - touch join". This will increase adoption of video greatly.
Before the Group series with peripherals was implemented the cost of a video room was twice what it is today. Massive win.
Due to provisioning and automated firmware the IT involvement has been greatly reduced. No longer is there a need for manual changes to individual endpoints.
