Article, Cisco, Unified Collaboration
Recently, Cisco invited a couple of members of the Tesrex team down to their head office to take a look at the brand new Webex Desk Pro, their latest collaboration device. After a fascinating presentation about Cisco’s vision for workplace transformation we found out some interesting points about the Webex Desk Pro and got a hands-on demonstration.
We found out a few cool features of the Webex Desk Pro that we haven’t seen widely published elsewhere and summarised them below for you.
The Webex Desk Pro has definitely been designed with one eye on the future. The presenter from Cisco told us that the device has been built with sensors that can detect temperature, humidity, light levels and many other external factors.
Currently there aren’t a tonne of possibilities for these sensors but as time goes on, we are seeing smart workspaces becoming more and more prevalent. It likely won’t be long until these capabilities will be immensely useful when it comes to office management and planning for the future. It also shows how advanced this collaboration device truly is.
Nearly everyone has been in the awkward position of jumping onto a video call and realising the backdrop behind them is not looking as professional as it perhaps should be. Whether there are kids’ toys strewn across the room, or even sensitive information on a whiteboard positioned behind you, tidying up before a meeting is often not an option.
The Webex Desk Pro solves this issue with an innovative new feature that allows you to blur everything in your video feed apart from your head and shoulders. Alternatively to blurring the background, you can also set your background to any image of your choice.
This feature is not expected to be widely available until Autumn 2020 but luckily, we were able to have a play around with it. We were pleasantly surprised with how well it worked considering this feature was still in development. As long as the background was stationary, the device had no problem detecting it and removing it. We expect this to be a popular feature when it’s released so keep an out for people using it in your future Webex meetings!
The front of the Webex Desk Pro has a strip at the bottom that is covered in a grey woven material similar to the Room Kit Mini. We can see why Cisco has chosen this new style of design for their latest collaboration products as it looks modern but also subtle. However, the material front is not suitable for all the industries that Cisco is pushing this device towards.
Cisco has said that the Webex Desk Pro is the perfect tool for hospitals where doctors can consult with each other in public environments and we’re inclined to agree. However, when it comes to medical environments everything needs to be sterile. This is difficult with a material surface.
That’s why Cisco have designed this part of the device to be detachable and replaced with a sleek stainless-steel fitting that will be much easier to clean. This isn’t a huge feature, but it was interesting to us and showed how Cisco thinks closely about how their device would suit different industries.
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