A new year is here, and that means new gym memberships, reading goals, and travel plans. Also new this year? Technology and audiovisual trends that will help your company enhance collaboration, improve communication, and stay ahead of the competition.
As 2020 gets underway, here are 5 AV trends to keep your eye on.
5 Audiovisual Trends to Watch in 2020
- Video will be everywhere—and we mean everywhere. Eighty-six percent of workers say they expect meetings to use technology so up your video conferencing game and give employees what they want. With COLLABORATE® Space, dispersed team members can connect using video and audio, and then collaborate in real-time within the same application thanks to tools including file sharing, whiteboarding, and chat. But it doesn’t stop there. This is the year video communication will find its way into more parts of your business than ever. Make sure everyone can be seen—even in smaller rooms—with the new UNITE® 50 4K ePTZ wide-angle video camera. With 4K resolution, a 3x digital zoom, and a simple USB 3.0 connection for video and power, it’s a flexible, professional-grade solution for video conferencing applications in small rooms, huddle spaces, and executive offices.
- Workspaces are going virtual—and staying that way. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 26 million Americans now work remotely at least some of the time. That’s 16 percent of the total U.S. workforce and that number is only going up. If you worry about remote worker productivity, the tools you provide can make a difference. Employees can burn through hours trying to figure out how to connect to meetings and collaborate with their co-workers. And that could significantly offset any productivity gains you’d hoped to achieve. With the ClearOne CONVERGE® Huddle DSP, designed specifically for huddle rooms and other impromptu collaboration spaces, you get a single, clutter-free connection to your laptop using just a USB cable so collaboration between employees happens quickly and easily.
- Get ready for a BYOD explosion. We’re well past the tipping point on mobile device usage. Not only are they an integral part of people’s personal lives, and they are becoming more and more common in the workplace as well. Sixty percent of workers use a personal device for work purposes, which can save them time and you money—as long as you have the right tools in place to capture the benefits. The COLLABORATE® Versa Pro CT helps you get the most out of BYOD collaboration, with a CONVERGE Huddle DSP to easily connect laptops and a patented Beamforming Mic Array Ceiling Tile (BMA CTH) for all-over audio coverage. Easily connect to any cloud-based service such as COLLABORATE Space, Microsoft® Teams, WebEx™, or Zoom™. Trying to participate using a smartphone? With ClearOne’s new CONVERGE® Wall-Mount Bluetooth Expander you can stream audio directly from a mobile device to the CONVERGE® Pro 2 and CONVERGE Huddle DSPs.
- Simple, unified solutions will come out ahead. When it comes to AV management in 2020, less is more and single solutions that can manage multiple applications will be more and more in demand. The CONVERGENCE™ AV Network Manager provides monitoring, control, and real-time system access to all ClearOne professional audio and video products and services such as CONVERGE Pro 2, CONVERGE Huddle, and COLLABORATE Space. Better yet, you can access an all-inclusive dashboard view from your desktop or mobile device.
- Just about everything is headed to the cloud. Gartner projected that the worldwide cloud services market would grow 17.5 percent in 2019 and similar growth is expected through 2020 as well. More than a third of organizations see cloud investments as a top three investing priority in the coming year. That money should be invested in cloud-based services that are easy for employees anywhere to use, and still deliver results for employers with dispersed or remote teams. COLLABORATE Space lets employees collaborate one-on-one or in groups, and stores all collaboration including meeting agendas, notes, messages, and documents in one, searchable space.
Let’s Talk 2020
Are you ready to give your AV a new start for the new year? Reach out to a ClearOne representative today to learn more about the ClearOne technologies that will keep you moving forward this year and beyond.
