A software I recommend my colleagues
Overall Satisfaction with Lifesize Video Conferencing
We have five locations across three states, as well as many remote workers. LifeSize offers a way for us to easily have all of our employees join video meetings together, regardless if there are 20 people together in a large conference room using a room system, or if it is a remote worker connecting via their smart phone or tablet.
Additionally, the LifeSize support team has been fantastic in working through optimizing our system over the years. They definitely have a more customer-focused approach than larger vendors or services such as Skype.
The chat functionality is still immature compared to competing group productivity platforms, such as Slack. Would really love to see LifeSize beef up those types of features to make it truly a single platform that can provide robust instant messaging (including rich text, images, etc.) and better notifications for desktop users, in addition to the great video experience that LifeSize is known for.
If you work in small ad-hoc teams, LifeSize may be a little expensive or not offer the right balance of video-to-other collaboration-type communication features, such as robust chat and file sharing.However, if you work in an environment with larger teams spread out that also need to connect with individuals wherever they might be, then LifeSize is a solid consideration. It offers relatively platform-agnostic high quality video meetings with screen sharing and recording as the
Pros
- LifeSize happened to be one of the solutions we were able to pitch in easily, as it moved from a complete H.323 system to a cloud solution thanks to the Lifesize cloud. This allowed users to do their Video Conference calls without spending additional money on dedicated lines for your Video Conference.
- Easy setup and use of devices they really try to make it easy on users
Cons
- I dislike that they are no longer making the Team/Room 220's. I am not a fan of the Icon editions that are replacing the Team/Room 220's for my classrooms and conference rooms. I do not like, when I remote into the codecs, that the layout is very limited compared to the Team/Room 220's. I can no longer see if someone is in the room or able to access the remote control or adjust the cameras. Because we are not using the "Cloud" with our codecs, users are no longer able to access a directory. The remote control looks almost like the Apple TV remote, which has very few buttons with no labels on it. My users, who are not very tech savvy, would rather not use the equipment unless some else sets it up for them.
- Software for computers could be more robust. One thing I would like to see is a way to click on one of the video streams to just see it large and be able to toggle which screen I want to see myself, instead of the software deciding which one should be the focus point based on who is talking.
- LifeSize has gone through a lot of changes and updates over the last couple of years, but overall they are really solid.
- We have used a lot of different providers for video conferencing including Cisco, but this one is by far my favorite.
- Quality of audio and video was great. Some great features available to ensure that the meeting leader was able to mute/unmute participants and make web based meetings more successful.
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