Lifesize - Simple to use for the smaller office
Updated January 16, 2018

Lifesize - Simple to use for the smaller office

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Lifesize Video Conferencing

Get a good trusted vendor. You get what you pay for. It's best to work with someone who has done a few of these installs. It's more about the room than the unit itself. The more planning that goes into the setup the better the overall user experience will be.
We have been using Lizesize for 8-10 years here. We are using our 5 room units and 10 cloud licenses across all of our offices and user base. When users are away from the office or on vacation they are still able to easily join a meeting at our HQ. I think the ease of use is the best feature. Anyone, anytime can join a call without IT involvement.
  • Easy to use
  • Good quality for the price point
  • Simple to set up
  • User interface could be cleaner
  • Not all products work with the cloud product
  • Slow to update
Small to mid sized offices with the need for video conferencing but don't want to invest in a full solution are the target audience. Given the lack of integration I would say Lifesize is not fit for a larger company with many offices. For the price you pay they should integrate better.

Lifesize Video Conferencing Feature Ratings

High quality audio
6
High quality video
6
Low bandwidth requirements
7
Desktop sharing
7
Calendar integration
1
Meeting initiation
5
Record meetings / events
1
Slideshows
5

Using Lifesize Video Conferencing

3 - We use our in house Help Desk staff to manage the users and the actual video conference units. They range from a junior tech to a senior infrastructure engineer. Since we are a smaller firm we need everyone to be able to assist when needed. Basic skills are all that is needed to support the users.
  • Video conferencing
  • multi party phone calls
  • conference calls
Though this is a strong product we are going to be looking for something that is fully integrated with our communications package. It would be good if they partnered up with a Avaya or someone else to make this one product and not an add on to your phone system
  • collaboration is up
  • we have used this for all company meetings
  • we have used this to do remote interviews
150 - We give everyone in our firm the ability to use the video conferencing software. If they are in the office they can use one of the conference rooms or if they are traveling they can use the app. If they need to join someone from outside the firm we provide them a link to work with.

Evaluating Lifesize Video Conferencing and Competitors

I would actually not change the way Lifesize was selected. I would rather change the way we went about the selection and include the phone system and instant messaging into this search. I would rather have one product across the board so everything works together. I feel like this would be better.
This really was not even a close race between Skype and LifeSize. We wanted a product that would be seamless in our large and even the small conference rooms. We could not find an elegant way to get Skype for Business to work in a larger room. Even though it was "free" we still chose not to use it.
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Product Reputation
  • Existing Relationship with the Vendor
For us it was the fact we have been a Lifesize customer for many years. It was a logical progression for us to use their cloud based product when it was released. The fact that everything worked with our current hardware was also a plus. No further hardware investment was needed.

Lifesize Video Conferencing Support

The pre sales support is great. After the pre sales process it was hard to get decent support. Since the product was new there was a lack of knowledge by vendors and even their own support staff. I feel that this is an area where they really need to step it up.
ProsCons
Quick Resolution
Good followup
Escalation required
Difficult to get immediate help
Need to explain problems multiple times
Pre sales was great. They also helped us with the setup on our video conference units. This made sure that we had all the bugs worked out before we got going in production. This made the launch internally perfect. Since we had their attention it was quick to get answers as well as feature request.

Using Lifesize Video Conferencing

This product is simple to use. Since it is only doing one function it makes it easy for them to make it just work. This is one of the things that is consistent through the interface, its usability. Anyone can use the app after minor training. This was key for our success.
ProsCons
Relatively simple
Easy to use
Technical support not required
Well integrated
Consistent
Quick to learn
Convenient
Feel confident using
Familiar
None
  • logging in
  • dialing a meeting
  • support logs
  • having all the info needed in the client

Lifesize Video Conferencing Reliability

Given that these units are really standalone you can scale as needed. I really wish there was some type of interconnection or awareness from unit to unit. I want all the systems under my supervision to be connected. A single dashboard would really make it feel as if it was something you could scale.
We have a number of users both local and in the field that use this on a daily basis. The issues that we had were early on in the products life cycle. After these bumps were ironed out we have not had any major issues with our onsite or apps in the field.
The app is very easy to use and is not a large application so it tends to just work. I do not think that it is complex at all which is another good point. We have not had any issues when working with a third party conference bridge as well.