5 years of Lifesize Video Confernecing
June 21, 2016
5 years of Lifesize Video Confernecing
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Lifesize Video Conferencing
We use Lifesize across our whole organisation. We currently have 4 physical systems and a 10 user cloud license. We make approximately 50 calls a month across all instances and find the quality of the calls extremely good. It reduced the need for travel as we are able to communicate so effectively with all locations on a regular basis.
- Simple to use and requires little support from the IT Department.
- High quality video and audio quality.
- The "newish" cloud feature is very expensive in comparison to the old "ClearSea" solution which allowed users to call into the physical systems from an application of phones\pads\pc's etc.
- The systems need to be set to reboot each night to prevent them from crashing every few weeks. I have not found an alternative way around this.
- Desktop sharing is very slow to respond and remains blurry on the receivers end for several seconds after the picture has been sent. Therefore scrolling on an Excel screen for example doesn't work very well as the user controlling the desktop at the local site can't tell if the picture is clear on the receivers end. This leads to many interrupts during a meeting and is therefore not really usable in our experience. Desktop sharing on the Cloud option is even worse and only presents a very small screen to the users. This screen cannot be enlarged or made the primary screen.
- Although the systems say they support multiple screens and have been told by sales staff and support staff that in a three way call we could have each remote site on a different screen this has never been possible. We can use a split screen on one of the displays to show the two sites while the second screen can is used for desktop sharing (which as already explained isn't great) or looking at your own image back.
20 - Primarily the users are senior management from Finance, Operations, Engineer, HR and Sales.
- Facility tours by using an iPAD to walk around a facility and review it.
- Price
- Product Features
- Product Usability
The HD quality of calls combined with the price 5 years ago were the most important factors that got us to change from using Polycom to Lifesize. Lifesize's price has increased since then and the ongoing OPEX cost for the cloud service would now make me think twice about buying.
Lifesize Video Conferencing Feature Ratings
Using Lifesize Video Conferencing
5 - We have 5 IT staff internally that support all IT systems including Lifesize. Lifesize gives very few issues.
- Weekly meetings with Finance Departments
- Weekly meetings with Operations Departments
- Weekly meetings with Engineering Departments
- Interviews for new staff members
- Senior management meetings
- Facility Tours
- Troubleshooting engineering issues
- Increased communication between all sites
- Reduced the need for flights
Evaluating Lifesize Video Conferencing and Competitors
Yes - Polycom SD Quality Video Conference System
The OPEX costs for Lifesize have increased dramatically since we implemented the system. This is due to the discontinuation of the the ClearSea application which was freely available. Now companies need to purchase the Lifesize Cloud license which for just 10 users costs several thousand a year. This is an unexpected cost and has negatively effected our overall experience of Lifesize.
- Polycom Architected Telepresence Experience and Microsoft Azure HDInsight