Blog

Walk into a modern conference room and there may be a display, cameras, microphones, speakers, a video conferencing platform, wireless presentation technology, and several other pieces of equipment working behind the scenes.

The person using the room shouldn't have to think about any of it.

That is where conferencing touch panels have become an important part of modern audiovisual design. A well-designed touch panel gives users one place to control the room, start a meeting, share content, adjust audio, and change the way a space is being used. In larger facilities, the same control system can also help manage room scheduling and allow multiple rooms to operate independently or work together as one larger meeting space.

What Does a Conferencing Touch Panel Actually Do?

A conferencing touch panel is essentially the control point between the user and the AV system. Instead of asking someone to locate several remotes or understand which piece of equipment controls a particular function, the touch panel presents the important controls in one interface. Depending on how the room is designed, that can include turning displays on and off, selecting a presentation source, starting a video conference, controlling cameras, adjusting volume, muting microphones, and managing other room functions. The important part is not the touchscreen itself. It is what the touchscreen is connected to and how the control system has been programmed.

Making Conference Rooms Easier to Use

One of the biggest benefits of a touch panel is reducing the number of decisions a user has to make.

Consider a typical meeting. Someone walks into the room with a laptop. They need to turn on the display, connect to the conferencing system, select the correct camera, make sure the microphones are active, and get presentation content onto the screen. A well-programmed control interface can reduce that process to a few straightforward choices.

The user might see options such as Start Meeting, Present, Camera, Volume, or End Meeting. The system then handles the commands required to make those functions happen. This is particularly useful in healthcare environments where conference rooms may be used by executives, physicians, staff, educators, and other employees throughout the day. Not everyone using the room will have the same level of technical experience.

The goal is not to give users more controls. It is to give them the right controls.

Touch Panels and Room Scheduling

Room scheduling technology gives employees a way to determine whether a room is available and reserve it for a meeting. A scheduling interface can help reduce the problem of walking around a facility looking for an open conference room. There is an important distinction between a room scheduling panel and a room control panel. Scheduling focuses on when the room is being used. The AV control interface focuses on what the room does once the meeting starts.

In larger installations, these functions can be part of a broader technology strategy. Organizations can establish consistent room types and control methods while still configuring each space around its intended purpose. That approach was important at our recent project for Wiregrass Ranch Hospital because the facility contains many different types of meeting and collaboration spaces. The AV system included smaller conference areas, larger conference rooms, boardroom spaces, specialty areas, and consultation rooms.

Creating Consistent Collaboration Spaces

A small meeting room does not need the same hardware as a large boardroom. The control experience, however, can still follow the same basic logic. This is when standardization becomes especially valuable when an organization has many rooms. 

At the Wiregrass Ranch project mentioned above, some rooms used Crestron TS-1070 tabletop touch screens while other spaces used TSW-770 wall-mounted touch screens. The larger system also incorporated Crestron DM-NVX network AV equipment, video conferencing systems, wireless presentation technology, cameras, microphones, and displays. That creates what we often think of as a common language for the building. A user who learns how to operate one room doesn't have to start from scratch in another room. The display might be larger. There may be more microphones or additional cameras. The room may support more complicated presentation options. The basic control philosophy can remain familiar. For organizations with multiple facilities, this also has practical value for training and support.

Bringing Divisible Rooms Together

It's becoming more common that we are programming these touch panels to control divisble rooms. These touch panels provide a "user interface" a.k.a. "UI". These UI control systems determine what should happen in these given rooms as the networked AV infrastructure moves the requires audio and video resources accordingly. A divisible room is designed to operate as separate spaces when smaller meetings are needed and as one larger room when a larger event is taking place. That creates a control challenge because the AV system has to understand which rooms are operating independently and which rooms are being combined. The user should not have to understand the signal routing behind that process.

Depending on the design, a user could select the rooms that need to operate together and the system can coordinate the associated displays, microphones, speakers, cameras, and other AV resources. This is where the relationship between control and AV-over-IP becomes important.

All-in-all the real AV integration work happens in the programming and system design. Every button needs to have a purpose. The interface needs to reflect how the room is actually used. The control system needs to understand the state of the equipment and respond appropriately when users make changes. That is why touch panels should be considered part of the overall conferencing system rather than a standalone accessory.

What Organizations Should Consider When Designing Conference Room Control

The best touch panel interface is not necessarily the one with the most features.

It is the one that makes the room easier to use.

Before selecting a control platform, organizations should consider how people actually use their meeting spaces. Will employees regularly host Teams meetings? Do visitors need to present from their own laptops? Are rooms going to be combined for larger events? Will multiple rooms need to share content? Does the organization need room scheduling? How much control should an end user have?

Those questions should be answered during AV design rather than after the equipment has already been selected.

The Wiregrass Ranch Hospital project is a good example of why this matters. The facility required different room configurations, but the technology still needed to feel familiar to the people using it. That is one of the biggest advantages of modern conferencing touch panels. They take a complicated collection of AV equipment and turn it into an interface that makes sense to the person sitting in the room.

For businesses, healthcare organizations, educational facilities, and other organizations building or upgrading conference spaces, that can mean faster meeting startup, easier collaboration, simpler training, and fewer technology-related distractions. The technology behind the room can be sophisticated. The experience using it should not be.