Conference Speakerphones

A speakerphone fixes audio and nothing else, which makes it the cheapest genuine improvement available to a room that has a screen and a laptop already.

It is worth being clear about what it buys. The people at the far end of a call judge the room almost entirely on how it sounds - a poor picture is tolerated and poor audio ends the meeting early. Where budget covers one thing, this is the thing.

Pickup range is the specification that matters. A unit rated for four people at a small table will not cover eight around a boardroom table, and the failure is gradual: the people nearest are clear and the ones at the ends are not, which is hard to diagnose from inside the room. For longer tables, units that daisy-chain or take expansion microphones are the answer.

USB units are simplest and tie the audio to whatever laptop is plugged in. Bluetooth adds convenience and a pairing step that somebody will get wrong before an important call. For a room used daily, wired is less trouble.

Room acoustics set the ceiling on all of it. A room with bare walls, tiles and glass will sound poor through any device, and we will say when treatment is the better purchase.