Video Conferencing Team Collaboration Collaboration Devices Engineering

What’s New in RoomOS – February

Feb 15, 2021 — Juan Gallardo

After a quiet January, we have really upped our innovation engine to bring you 8 new features to enhance your collaboration experience, whether you are in a meeting or wanting to whiteboard or share your screen, or curious as to what a full cloud meeting experience is.

Webex Edge for Devices updates

Native Webex Meeting Experience for Webex Edge for Devices

We are now offering a steppingstone towards an experience that is closer to the cloud experience. With Native Webex Meeting Experience for Webex Edge for Devices, you can enjoy cloud features on your devices registered to the edge when you join a Webex Meeting. Your device will join a Webex Meeting natively, giving you access to all the features that were previously only available in the cloud. Think multi-way whiteboarding, facial recognition with name labels, advanced mute capabilities and host controls.

Webex Edge for Devices Software upgrades

With cloud-managed software upgrades, your Webex Edge for Devices linked devices get upgraded automatically when a new RoomOS software version is available. In order to enable Native Webex Meeting Experience for Webex Edge for Devices, your devices need to be cloud upgradable. This is in order to make sure that any change to the cloud service will be noted by the on-premises endpoint, and don’t disconnect or disrupt any workflow.

In-meeting experiences

Transfer Host and Presenter Roles

When using Webex, it is easy to “pass the ball,” meaning that the meeting host can give special privileges to whomever is going to present. We are now making this available for Webex Rooms devices. This makes it easy to keep the meeting going when the original host needs to leave – they can simply assign a new host, and the meeting can keep on rolling. Check out the help article here.

Request Unmute

There are situations where it’s your turn to present and you’ve forgotten to unmute yourself. Instead of someone announcing to all participants that you’ve forgotten to unmute yourself, we have added an option for the host to send a message to the person who is muted to request them to unmute themselves. The person who is muted will get a notification saying:“You are being asked to unmute yourself.” Visit the help article to learn more.

Closed Captions

We are all about inclusive collaboration experiences and making virtual meetings 10x better than in-person interactions. That’s why we are excited to introduce closed captions on our devices. Today’s workforce is multicultural, and cross-border collaboration is the norm. By bringing in closed captions to your meetings, you are making it easier for people with hearing impairments to understand what is being said. Additionally, by having both auditory input, being able to see body language through video and closed captions increases the chances of understanding and being understood. Learn more by visiting the help article.

Improved co-creation, layout and content sharing experiences

Shape recognition

We have added a beautification tool to help make the shapes you draw on your whiteboard on the Webex Desk Pro or Webex Board a bit more precise. When you draw certain figures, the whiteboard will detect it and re-trace them with more accuracy. For example, it will complete a circle or straightening a square. If you want to learn more you can check out the help article for Webex Board Series or Webex Desk Series.

Layout selection on Webex Board

The Webex Board series has always had a different layout than the rest of the Webex Rooms portfolio. We are now aligning it to the rest of the portfolio, providing most of the regular layout families to the Webex Board. At this point, this is only available for transcoded meetings. Further, transcoded meetings on single-screen devices will receive a wide PiP with up to 6 participants in view. Click here to learn more.

Improved share flow for Webex Desk Pro

If you haven’t had a chance to try the Webex Desk Pro yet – you are missing out. This is a truly brilliant device, and we are making the content sharing experience even more intuitive. We have added the share button to the floating content bar and your self-view area, making sharing easy. Tired of asking whether people can see your screen? With this new improved share flow, you will get a red border around your screen to let you know that you are sharing. Easy as anything.

Sharing Web Apps in call

A few months back we made it available to launch a web app directly from your Webex Board Desk Pro’s home screen and interact with them using the touch display. We have taken this one step further by allowing you to also use these web apps during a call! The best thing is that everyone is in on the experience – devices without a touch interface can receive and see whatever web apps you are sharing too. The help article can be found here.

That’s it (and that was a lot!) for February. I hope you will make good use of these new features. Until next time!

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