Google has just launched a new touchscreen-powered device designed specifically for its Hangouts Meet.
As you may recall, the Mountain View company relaunched its Hangouts platform earlier year as an enterprise service for teams and organizations. The general idea is to create a simplified platform on which team members can collaborate while working to achieve a common goal. Granted, there are other team-oriented apps and software on the market, but Google is looking to revolutionize the process with its Hangouts hardware.
“Earlier this year, Google relaunched Hangouts as an enterprise service focused at teams. Hangouts Meet — the video component — launched before the text chat app and is today adding dedicated hardware to simplify video conferencing,” wrote Google.
According to the official 9to5Google blog, the new Hangout Meet hardware is similar to the Chromebox for Meetings. It features speaker, a microphone, 4K camera sensor and ASUS Chromebox. Additionally, however, it also features a new touchscreen interface instead of the previous remote.
The use of a touchscreen interface will likely open the doors to a whole new world of possibilities for users, allowing them to perform tasks more efficiently. Among other things, users can view meeting details, access events, control their settings and more, all from the device’s touchscreen interface. Furthermore, it features an HDMI connection, allowing users to connect the device to a laptop, monitor or TV. Reports also indicate that up to five displays can be daisy-changed together.
Another key feature of the new Hangout hardware is the spearmic. Designed by Google, it’s said to eliminate echo and background noise; thus, offering a clear and crisp audio. Being that the device is designed for teams and organizations, this will likely improve its utility. After all, crisp sound is essential to understanding what other users are saying.
The new Hangout hardware also boasts an impressive 4K camera with a 120-degree field of view. This camera is manufactured by Huddly, which provides the hardware to Google.
And if that wasn’t enough, the new Hangout hardware features machine learning technology. Basically, it’s able to automatically detect people, zooming in on those people and adjusting the frames. This is all done thanks to the device’s Chrome operating system and ASUS Chromebox. With Google Meet now supporting up to 50 simultaneous users, this device should become a big hit among companies and professionals.
What do you think of the new touchscreen device for Hangout?
