Focus on What Matters and Get Closer in-Room to Remote Video Communication

Anh Duc Dao, Jun 17, 2021

Breakthrough innovation! Neat Symmetry enables remote participants to see all those in the meeting room equally up close for enhanced engagement like never before.

For a while now, if you and several of your team were in a meeting room, you would have had a less visible presence than those meeting one to one on their laptops, desktop computers or mobile devices. Well, not anymore!

Neat Symmetry is a revolutionary development in video smart room technology and unique to Neat. Making virtual meetings feel almost as real as meeting face-to-face, Neat Symmetry combines advanced AI with a high-resolution sensor to detect everyone in the meeting room, zooming in to individually pinpoint and auto frame each person, then presenting them up close on remote participants screens like never before. In short, it restores the Symmetry that’s so crucial to more natural video communication.

Being in meetings from home, we’ve all gotten used to seeing everyone prominently displayed on our personal screens in Gallery View. But returning to the office, we find our presence diminished to a few tiny pixels in the meeting room. With hybrid working becoming a prevalent part of the new normal and everyone keeping a safe social distance, Neat has been exploring pioneering ways of restoring Symmetry between people in the meeting room and those remote.

Reading every facial expression or gesture

Subtle facial expressions or body gestures are often difficult to detect when people are dispersed throughout the meeting room, making everything seem fragmented and less of a shared experience. Typically, the room’s surroundings, walls, ceiling, office furniture, etc., engulf most of the image on people’s screens, causing a further divide between all involved. Video images that are too small or large result in a loss of felt human connection, leaving remote participants feeling disengaged. For example, if you only frame a person from the shoulders up, it’s no longer possible to read their hand gestures or similar characteristic mannerisms.

Other video providers have tried tackling this issue using voice-tracking, which centers on the person in the room who’s actively speaking. However, the problem is you only see that person and no one else. What’s more, if another in-room participant interrupts or makes a remark, the focus will shift to them but awkwardly and unevenly.

Our patent-pending Neat Symmetry cleverly corrects that by enabling everyone in the room to be seen, regardless of who’s speaking. It separately auto frames each person, wherever they sit or stand, by zooming in on those at the back and showing them in equal proportion to their teammates at the front. By cropping each person’s image to just the right size, remote participants can read their entire body language more easily. And if two or three people sit beside or close to each other, Neat Symmetry’s AI will work out the algorithm and recalibrate to frame them together, avoiding any overlap and loss of image quality. 

Taking auto framing to the next level

Neat Symmetry only focuses on what matters, i.e., the people in the meeting room. It brings everyone there to the forefront of remote participants screens for closer than ever engagement.Better still, Neat Symmetry takes the concept of auto framing to a whole new level by applying it to each person’s frame, instinctively following them if they shift positions, get up or move around.

Nearly all people find it challenging to manage a meeting while having to rely on manual camera control. That’s why journalists are accompanied by a camera person when they’re conducting interviews or reporting. Then they can concentrate on the task at hand without any distractions. And so it goes with video. Your cognitive focus should be on your meeting or whatever other activity it is you’re doing and nothing else.

Whether you’re collaborating with colleagues, talking to clients, giving instructions to customers or teaching a class full of remote students, Neat Symmetry’s smooth and super responsive auto framing gives you the freedom to be stationary, pace about or be as energetic as you need to be. All the while ensuring you’re fully in frame. Instead of remote participants peering in and feeling like a fly on the wall, they’ll be right in the thick of the action with you.

Making video feel more exciting

Seamlessly bringing rich and meaningful experiences to people’s work, interactions and lives across any meeting space, Neat continuously strives to deliver radically simple, innovative and flexible solutions across many product and service categories. All Neat devices are purpose-built to optimally make everything you experience in your meetings smoother, smarter, faster, more stable and secure, bringing you, your teammates, customers or students closer together by delivering the future of video technology today!

Watch our Neat Symmetry video to get a more in-depth understanding of Neat Symmetry’s leading-edge capabilities. For further info about Neat devices or to order directly online, visit neat.no. We offer worldwide shipping and can deliver in just a few days.

Watch how Neat Symmetry enables
remote participants to see everyone in the meeting room equally up close
on their screens.