These days, companies in every industry must be set up for video conferencing. An office without a remote meeting room is basically the same as one without a bathroom!

After hearing that, you might think you can metaphorically duct tape together a meeting room with a laptop camera or cheap webcams. That’s a massive mistake. Instead, you should create an in-room feeling for far-end participants to enable optimal connections and results, and for that you’ll need professional-grade conferencing equipment.

Professional cameras offer essential features like wide-angle FOV lenses, True WDR, and wide-ranging pan/tilt/zoom movement. These features foster an ideal environment for distance collaboration, but we’re going to focus on just one of them for now: zoom.

Why does zoom matter in your meeting room? Because it lets you get detailed and focus on presenters.

Zoom in on Details

Carrying around a laptop to give a tour of your room is fine when you’re on a Skype call with your mom, but it’s not so good for professional meetings. A premium video conferencing camera uses zoom to adapt to your space, rather than making you adapt your space to your limited camera.

If a camera lens gives far-end viewers eyes into your meeting space, the zoom acts as their virtual legs, transporting them around the room. With a good zoom, you can move viewers closer to whiteboards/displays or details on your latest product prototypes. This lets you engage your internal and external customers with intimate details, actively engaging them in lieu of relegating them to passive viewing. You don’t have to think too much to figure out how that will positively affect your organization's performance!

Zoom in on Presenters

Zoom is also essential for presentations. If you’re working with a laptop or webcam, you’ll need to move the device along your meeting table or play musical chairs to get closer to the camera every time the presenter changes. At its best, it’s a time waster; at its worst, you’ll give your remote participants motion sickness!

A quality camera zoom gives remote participants a front row seat, and it makes the process seamless on your end. You can manually zoom the camera to focus on individual presenters within a few seconds, but the latest conferencing innovations will do you one better with smart functions. AI framing functions automatically zoom in on and switch between presenters via voice and face recognition. Some cameras even feature automatic tracking through preset areas, adjusting the zoom accordingly so you can incorporate your entire space in presentations. Again, this gives you your best shot at fully engaging your audience.