Webex Room Series: a lot of potential, but still needs some work with documentation and codec efficiency
April 28, 2023

Webex Room Series: a lot of potential, but still needs some work with documentation and codec efficiency

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

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Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Webex Room Series

We use the Room Series for bi-directional remote classes and webconferencing. We currently have a single 4K camera above the two TVs connected to the Room Series, but this will be upgraded to two cameras and 4 TV in the near future. The system works very well currently in its limited use case but I suspect that for true remote classroom experience, the single camera system will be found inadequate. The reason for this is because it is incapable of display the instructor, the classroom with students and the annotation board at the same time. We have had some compression issues in the past with video streams when the connection becomes slower but this is to be expected. Finally, when we use this system as a SIP to connect to the zoom service, while it works really well, the dial interface incorporated with the Room Series is arcane and difficult to master. For example, sometimes we need to be able to change the view to gallery instead of active speaker. To get this to work, we have to go back to the dial menu and punch in a bunch of options to make it work. This is very cumbersome.
  • Integration with Zoom
  • Bidirectional communication for classroom
  • Peripheral integration (tablets and remotes)
  • SIP dial-in service is arcane
  • Better compression codecs to avoid video and audio artefacting
  • Better tutorials on Webex. Many of these we made ourselves after trial and error
  • Positive impact: remote learning
  • Positive impact: remove the need for additional equipment for webconferencing (Laptop running zoom, for example)
  • Positive impact: relatively easy to use and setup
Their online resources are not as useful or well annotated as we would like them to be. There is some documentation but it is not written in a manner that is usable by the average-joe. This needs improvement.
There is a considerable amount of tech know-how needed to really make the Room Series work for most scenarios. This might be a due to the stark increase in remote based productivity as a result of COVID-19 and quarantine protocols. But CISCO support and documentation have not caught up the increase in adoption of these technologies. As a result, only personnel with substantial technical expertise are able to really make these systems work for the use-cases that is most relevant to our setting here at Clemson University.

Do you think Cisco Room Series delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Cisco Room Series's feature set?

Yes

Did Cisco Room Series live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Cisco Room Series go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Cisco Room Series again?

Yes

Best suited:
Bidirectional classroom interfaces

Not well suited:
SIP webconferencing