How AVoIP is Impacting the Home Office in the Brave New World

Like many industries, the Pro AV business has undergone dramatic changes due to the unprecedented COVID-19 situation this year. Both integrators and end-user customers in the commercial, residential and resimercial space have been impacted by the pandemic, and different scenarios need to be looked at in order for AV solutions to provide continuation to businesses to communicate and stay alive

The Importance of AV Now

Simply put, AV in its various forms provides a lifeline for many people and businesses, allowing them connect audibly and visually with people they need to interact with – whether for business or pleasure. Whether its video-Conferencing, live-streaming, audio calls or application sharing, these AV systems are  now being used by people in homes and remote locations to adjust from their more usual office or work environments to accomplish many of the same things – whether its content creation, delivering training, broadcasting, or interviewing, AV systems provide them the flexibility to extend over larger distances safely, even to more isolated areas.

And even as businesses start brining people back to the workplace, having to accommodate social distancing requirements, that landscape is also changing – the offices we left in the first few months of 2020 will not be same upon our return in the latter stages of this. year. What passed for a perfectly good conference room back then will no longer meet current requirements, and the same goes for huddle rooms and social areas, so other, safer, options need to be looked at.

Whatever these workspaces turn out to be, or however these requirements are met, one thing is for certain – an AV system will need be flexible and capable of coping with these changes – and this is where AVoIP systems come into their own. They are ideally suited to adapting environments including this current trend, resulting in the migration away from the more traditional, rigid point-to point legacy systems.

The Distance Office – now a Reality

For those offices and workplaces re-opening in the near future, offering employees safe communications systems is a prerogative. AVoIP plays an important role here.

‘Old-School’ methods of communications such as centrally positioned  ‘speakerphones’ in conference rooms may have served their purpose in the past, but now would be definite no-no – as well as huddle-rooms will start falling out of favour.

The concept of conferencing will need to reach beyond the basics – people using a conference service via their laptops and headphones. More inventive conference spaces in the work environment are being offered, with the design emphasis on safe distancing, featuring distributed AV peripherals such as mics and speakers.

Legacy AV systems in this context – whether analogue, USB, or matrix switch, would struggle to adjust due to their non-extendable design and functionality. AVoIP networked systems on the other offer the adaptability and open compliance that is needed in order to address these new needs.

Many endpoints stretched over large areas can be connected together to offer a robust service for high-quality 4K video and audio for crisp, clear communications purposes, as well as for allowing centrally managed operation of the whole AV system.

Multi-space conference rooms will thus be the new norm, with AVoIP being at the very heart of this offering.