Item: Lifesize Video Conferencing
Rating: 3
Author: Curt Sminkey

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

As a Video Conferencing device, Lifesize Video Conferencing's generally work ok. They allow groups of people to converse that might have required a lot of travel. However, we started phasing out the Lifesize Video Conferencing devices for lack of extra features. They come in at a lower price point than some other competitor devices but with that, comes with a lack of features and sadly, a lack of support as well.

Pros and Cons

In the simplest form of Video Conferencing, they work for small meetings
In some of the newer models, the video quality is pretty darn good if you can support the bandwidth
The table-top phone/speaker integrates nicely

Lack of features or options to integrate with other solutions
Audio was just ok. If it was a meeting with more than 3-4 people, it seemed it was too much
I had a hard time with support. They were not very responsive and felt like an up-hill battle at times.

Return on Investment

They have certainly helped reduce costs in travel, but as you can tell from this review, we've outgrown the limitations of Lifesize Video Conferencing.
Dealing with support is certainly a negative.

Alternatives Considered

Polycom RealPresence Group Series

Lifesize Video Conferencing had a comparable video picture to Polycom, but it appeared to require for more bandwidth. As if it wasn't being compressed at all. But the major factor for us was that Lifesize Video Conferencing (at least at the time) was not able to integrate with some of the Microsoft solutions that we already implemented. Audio quality was far better on the Polycom and even more so with some large rooms where we were able to add additional microphones - some of them hanging from the ceiling.

For a small organization, Lifesize Video Conferencing probably isn't a bad starting out point. As I've said, the last 2 companies I was with, outgrew the limitations at both.

Key Insights

Do you think Lifesize Video Conferencing delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Lifesize Video Conferencing's feature set?

Did Lifesize Video Conferencing live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Lifesize Video Conferencing go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Lifesize Video Conferencing again?

Usability

From a users perspective, they are fairly user-friendly. We have a contacts list or an address book of some of our other rooms and the IP address of the VC device so the user can just select the room to call. More so than the Polycom's is that they have an integrated phone/speaker right on the desk which helps in sharing content, muting the speakers, ETC.

Support Rating

I, personally, did not have much luck with Lifesize support. Each time i had to reach out to them it was a lengthy and frustrating process. I think each time the issue eventually got resolved but just the process to get there was pretty crazy.

Likelihood to Recommend

I think there's much better options out there. In a small setting, they might be suitable but I don't believe they scale very well in any medium-large size businesses.

We wanted to take advantage of things like a Microsoft Exchange calendar, a "Join Now" button and integrating with Teams. These are all things that our company made a sizeable investment on and in order to take things to the next level, we had to move on from Lifesize Video Conferencing.

A cheaper alternative, not sure if it's worth the headaches though

Overall Satisfaction with Lifesize Video Conferencing