What's New

On August 24th, Poly released our new Poly VideoOS software version 4.1. This release includes several new features, as well as updates and improvements to existing features, that are designed to optimize the hybrid meeting experience by addressing common challenges that our users run into.

How Poly VideoOS 4.1 Helps​

Defeat the Glass Wall​

Poly VideoOS 4.1 introduces new features designed to help you overcome challenges that glass walls present when video conferencing. Beyond rooms with glass walls, these features can also be beneficial in other challenging environments that you might encounter while hybrid working.

• Poly DirectorAI Perimeter (Preview Feature): We know that a glass wall represents a boundary, but our cameras might not. With DirectorAI Perimeter, you can provide important context to Poly VideoOS devices about what area should be included in framing decisions for your meetings. Just input the dimensions of your conference area, and only faces detected within that perimeter will be used for framing. This is also useful in conferencing “areas” that don’t have any walls, or rooms with monitors on the walls that show pictures or videos of people.

• Sound Reflection Reduction: Glass walls might look good, but when it comes to audio conferencing—they don’t sound good. These hard surfaces create significant reverberation of sound, which comes across to the far end as echoey, hollow, and generally hard to understand. Sound Reflection Reduction removes those strange audio artifacts caused by reverb so that speech comes across as natural and clear. This reduces the need for complex, expensive microphone arrays or significant acoustic paneling.

Improved Speaker Framing Experience​

Different types of video productions can deliver different types of experiences. The type of experience that is needed in the modern hybrid meeting is one that is predictable, even in uncontrolled environments, and non-distracting, so that the focus is always on the conversation.

In order to deliver this within Poly DirectorAI speaker framing mode, we’ve implemented a few updates:

• Looser Framing: When it comes to reducing distractions during a meeting, limiting the number of reframes is crucial. One scenario where we can do this is when there are several people sitting close together. By providing a looser frame in situations like this, we eliminate the need to reframe if someone else already within the frame starts to speak, while still providing an up-close shot of each speaker.
• Deliberate Framing Decisions: Hybrid meetings are generally considered uncontrolled environments where anything can happen; but we know from experience that there are patterns in the way people communicate. Considering those patterns, we’ve created very deliberate framing rules for most scenarios that are designed to mitigate unnecessary reframes and encourage a productive meeting.
• Non-Distracting Transitions: There are some things we can do to reduce the number of reframes, but of course there are many situations where a reframe is necessary and contributes positively to the experience. In those cases, the transition should be quick, simple, and predictable so that meeting attendees don’t have to spend time thinking about what is occurring with the framing and can use the energy instead to focus on the communication.

Flexibility and Scalability with IP-Connectivity​

We love to see more and more video-enabled rooms in the workplace, but what this means for our users is that they need solutions that are flexible, scalable and cost-effective to satisfy a large range of meeting spaces. IP-connectivity of conference cameras is a great way to provide that, and is now available for Poly Studio E70 when connected to G7500 running the Poly Video or Zoom app.

Other Updates and Improvements​

• SCEP: Support for Simple Certificate Enrollment Protocol to help admins manage deployments.
• Scheduled Auto Restart: Ability to schedule your systems to automatically restart on a weekly or daily interval can reduce the workload for IT administrators.
• Studio X30 2nd Camera Support: Studio X30 now supports selecting USB cameras as secondary camera for Studio X30, which can be particularly beneficial for more flexible health care deployments.
• Zoom Recertification for Studio X-Series and G7500: As part of our ongoing partnership with Zoom to provide the best experience to our users, we have recertified our products.
• G7500 Audio Output Updates: Users can now choose a specific audio output configuration for G7500 HDMI and 3.5mm audio output, providing them with more flexibility and customization.

Touch Controller Updates​

• Microsoft Teams on Android controller support on TC10: Our newest touch controller, TC10, is now available for use with our Poly VideoOS devices in Microsoft Teams mode.
• Platform update to Android 11: Following the Poly VideoOS platform update to Android 10 in our previous 4.0 release, our touch controllers TC8 and TC10 have been updated to Android 11 to provide users with the most modern, up-to-date Android experience.
• Camera Control Button on Touch Controllers in Device Mode: To ensure our devices provide the best experience, however you choose to use them, we have added a camera control option to the touch controller screen when in Device Mode.

For more information and technical details regarding the Poly VideoOS 4.1 release, see the PolyOS Release Note.

As part of our ongoing initiative to transition customers from the 3PIP Gateway to Microsoft Teams SIP Gateway, Microsoft collaborated with HP Poly to facilitate Bulk Sign-In, an enhancement to Teams SIP Integration in Poly Lens. This capability enables Administrators to remotely provision up to 100 common area desktop and conference room phones simultaneously, in just a few steps.

Poly Lens has introduced two additional Lens settings: Bulk Onboarding and Tenant GUID. This updates the device provisioning information to Teams SIP Gateway service which can be applied to any of the following Policies - Device/Device Model/Device Group/Site. We continue to include support for compatible devices with Teams SIP Gateway such as VVX, Trio, CCX series, and Edge E series just certified by Microsoft for compatibility. For more information, please see Microsoft - Plan for SIP Gateway.

With this enhancement and SIP Gateway compatible Poly devices, organizations can save valuable time and resources while delivering a better experience for the end user. This feature is currently released with a Preview tag as we coordinate with Microsoft to promote to Generally Available. You are welcome to provide your Feedback from Poly Lens using the Feedback tool in the bottom right corner of the Poly Lens portal. Be sure to select Preview as we track this release.

To get started, go to Manage > Policies > Individual Device/Device Model/Device Group/Site.

Select Integrations > Microsoft Teams.

Then Enable Lens Assisted Provisioning Feature and set your SIP Gateway Region and Device Language.

Lastly, enable Bulk Onboarding and enter your Tenant GUID (Office 365 Tenant ID) from Microsoft to enable PowerShell commands to remotely deploy to Common Area Phones. Note: For detailed information see Microsoft Teams - Bulk Sign-In on Adding Public IP Range(s) as Trusted IPs at Teams Admin Center.

Note: The Clear Cache button that will allow you to start the integration over with the Teams SIP Gateway platform. A new deviceID and provisioning URL will be sent for authentication.

Teams SIP Gateway Troubleshooting: When a device is signed out or getting the following error from PowerShell Device not found with Bulk Sign-In use Clear Cache starting from the Individual Device Level and then expand to additional device policies experiencing this issue. This Clear Cache process will assign a new device ID that will be pushed back to the device. The device will sign back in on the next provisioning cycle (typically every 24 hours) unless you explicitly reboot.

For more information on Teams Admin Center pre-requisites, Lens assisted provisioning with Bulk Onboarding and Tenant GUID, and Microsoft PowerShell commands to remotely deploy to Common Area Phones, see Poly Lens Help - Bulk Sign-in.

We're excited to announce a significant upgrade to our Poly Lens Visual Analytics with Power BI integration, empowering businesses with even deeper insights into their communication and collaboration environments. Experience the future of data-driven decision-making with the newly enhanced Poly Lens Power BI integration. The integration offers customizable dashboards, interactive visualizations, and the ability to combine Poly Lens data with other business metrics for a holistic view of your organization's performance.

Call Detail Records (CDR) - Uncover Actionable Insights​

Gone are the days of making decisions based on guesswork. The new CDR reports provide a comprehensive view of call data, enabling you to analyze call patterns, duration, participants, and more. By leveraging this data, you can fine-tune your communication strategies, identify where issues occurred, and enhance your organization collaboration experiences. The new CDR reports embedded in the updated Power BI integration empowers you to make data-driven decisions that truly impact your bottom line.

Key Benefits of the CDR Reports Feature​

• Call Pattern Analysis: Gain a clear understanding of peak call hours and days, allowing you to allocate resources effectively.
• Call Duration Trends: Spot trends in call durations and identify the most popular device models to help plan your next investments wisely.
• Performance Metrics: Measure call quality metrics to ensure optimal communication experiences for all participants.

Efficient use of meeting spaces is crucial in today's dynamic work environments. With the new Room Utilization Reports support with Power Bi, you'll gain valuable insights into how your meeting rooms and collaboration spaces are utilized. Make informed decisions about space allocation, optimize room configurations, and eliminate underutilized areas to foster a more productive workplace.

Key Advantages of Room Utilization Reports​

• Space Allocation Optimization: Understand how often meeting rooms are booked and used to optimize room allocation.
• Resource Planning: Plan maintenance and upgrades based on real usage data, preventing disruption to critical meetings.
• Collaboration Trends: Identify preferred rooms and layouts to enhance collaborative experiences.

With the addition of Call Detail Records (CDR) and Room Utilization Reports, Poly Lens continues to revolutionize how organizations optimize their resources and enhance productivity. These new reports are just another example of our commitment to providing you with the tools you need to optimize your communication and collaboration environments. Stay ahead of the curve, enhance productivity, and make informed decisions with Poly Lens. Setup is easy, and you'll love the newly expanded starter dashboards designed to get you started with instant visualizations of your Poly Lens inventory, CDR, and Room Utilization Reports. Don’t use Power BI? No problem, you can connect your preferred analysis tool to your Poly Lens Visual Analytics database to gain access to your device telemetry data and visualize it in a supported tool that works for you.

Ready to explore these new groundbreaking reports? To get started, find the new tool by going to the ACCOUNT menu > Manage Accounts. Select an Account from the list. Select Integrations > Visual Analytics. For more information on how to get started, data organization, and schema diagrams, visit Poly Lens Help - Visual Analytics.

Note: The Call Detail Records (CDR) and Room Utilization Report features are available with Poly+ Enterprise and Elite services. Please refer to our documentation for more details on feature availability.

Ubiqisense & Vyopta Integrate Poly Lens APIs with their Platforms​

As the hybrid work model continues to evolve, companies are on the lookout for insights to improve the workplace experience to entice employees to the office. Workplace cubicles are no longer the norm, and employees’ preferences are various. While some might prefer open & informal huddle workspaces, there are a few who prefer the quiet offered by small rooms & individual desks. There is no one-size-fits-all. According to research by Gensler (a global architecture, design, and planning firm), organizations are realizing the need to make the workplace into a destination rather than an obligation.

Right-sizing office space can help companies reduce their carbon footprint and achieve compliance with environmental sustainability goals. And lastly, companies are also realizing that there are enormous savings to be made by optimizing real estate utilization. Whatever the case, to make effective decisions, companies would need data & insights into how their office spaces are being utilized. Which is why Poly has partnered with Ubiqisense and Vyopta.

Ubiqisense​

Ubiqisense is a leader in space utilization analysis & insights. Through its solution, it can provide insights into occupancy, usage patterns & footfall across office floors, meeting rooms, open spaces & shared desks.

 

Vyopta​

Vyopta is a digital collaboration experience management company. It provides insights into room utilization, helps identify inefficient meetings, and enables you to take action to prevent costly repetition, repurpose existing resources, and plan for new build-out.

The Poly Advantage​

Through its hardware & software innovation, Poly continues to go the extra mile to bring unique value to its customers. People counting sensors can cost anywhere between USD 1K- 3K. However, Poly’s Studio X30, X50 & X52 have these sensors built in. That’s a direct cost saving for customers. People counting data from these devices is readily available via Poly Lens APIs. This data is quite helpful for analyzing office space utilization on platforms such as Ubiqisense & Vyopta.

Through Poly Lens APIs, you can take advantage of the intelligent insights and management capabilities offered on the Poly Lens platform to optimize your workflows, build custom applications, or extract the data from Poly Lens in a way that works for your organization. The Poly Lens APIs are documented at the Poly Lens Developer Portal.

As part of our continued efforts to help our customers optimize their collaboration experiences, we are excited to introduce a new streamlined and secure method to onboard users and their personal devices into Poly Lens with Loginless Onboarding. This feature is available starting with the 1.1.26 version of Lens Desktop for Windows.

This new onboarding method allows IT admins to create a unique client token within a Poly Lens cloud account. When this unique token is deployed together with Lens Desktop, all personal device users will be automatically connected to the designated Poly Lens cloud Account without requiring users to login.

Benefits of Loginless onboarding with Lens Desktop include:

• IT admins can deploy the Poly Lens Desktop in a scalable and secure manner
• IT admins can immediately manage all Poly Lens supported USB and Bluetooth personal Devices including headsets, USB video and personal speakerphones
• IT admins can increase the speed to onboard users and Devices
• End users will have complete access to customize their experience through the Lens Desktop App, without needing to sign-in or accept the end-user license agreement
• The App will launch minimized to the taskbar

For more information and Lens Desktop Loginless deployment instructions, search for Loginless in Poly Lens Help.

We are excited to announce the newest member of the Poly Lens family, the Poly Lens Web App available for Public Preview today. This Progressive Web App (PWA) was specifically designed to meet the needs of Google managed organizations and end users on Chrome devices.

The initial public preview is now available, offering early access with personal setting capabilities on select Works with Chromebook (WWCB) certified devices to any Poly user prior to the official launch in 2023.

Reference: Certified Solutions for Works with Chromebook.

The Poly Lens Web App is supported in Chrome, ChromeOS, and Edge. This will allow users to access the Lens Web App from a variety of devices and platforms. Our goal is to make it as easy as possible for our users to manage select Poly devices, regardless of the operating system they are using.

Supported Devices in Preview​

Works with Chromebook Devices

• Poly Blackwire USB Headsets
• Poly EncorePro USB Headsets
• Poly Studio, P5, Studio P15

Compatible with Chrome

• Poly Voyager Bluetooth Headsets (select models)
• Poly Adapters (BT700, DA75, MDA524)
• Poly Sync 10

Capabilities Supported in Preview​

The initial preview offers a limited set of capabilities, with additional IT management settings planned for the official launch. The current capabilities include the ability for users to configure device settings, advanced support with device logs, health and wellness features, notification alerts in Chrome for battery status, mute alerts, hold reminders, and more. Additionally, there is enterprise-level visibility for supported devices, inventory/user management, and online/offline status while the App is running.

At launch, the solution will not support firmware updates or policy management, but future updates will enable features that provide value to end-users, IT teams, and organizations.

For more information, see Poly Lens Web App Online Help, also search for the Web App in the Poly Lens Help.

How can I Access the Public Preview?​

You can access the public preview via the Chrome browser/ChromeOS/Edge at https://webapp.lens.poly.com/.

Try it out today and let us know your feedback in the Lens Web App or this URL: https://lens.poly.com/appfeedback as we work towards the official launch in 2023.

The Poly Lens Mobile App allows you to customize your Poly Bluetooth personal devices (headsets and speakerphones) to help you get the most out of your hybrid work experience.

Make the most of your meetings with the Poly Lens App, a powerful tool for customizing your personal devices to how you work, whether at home, on the road, or at the office. Staying up to date with the latest software is easy as a click, now, or when it suits your schedule. While mobile, you always know where your favorite device is with Find My Device. Staying on-task is easier when you mask distractions with our focus audio technologies.

The Poly Lens Mobile App allows you to:

• Keep your device up to date with the latest software
• Personalize your device settings to meet your workstyle
• Access helpful support
• Keep track of your device with the Find My Device feature
• Available for both iOS and Android

The devices supported include Poly Voyager 4200 series, Poly Voyager 4300 series, Poly Voyager 5200 series, Poly Voyager 6200 UC, Poly Voyager 8200 series, Poly Voyager Focus UC, Poly Voyager Focus 2 UC, Poly Voyager Focus 2 Office, and Personal speakerphones – Poly Sync 20 and 20-M, Poly Sync 40 and 40-M.

Please take note that the Poly Lens Mobile App is a direct replacement for the Plantronics Hub App for iOS/Android. The first release will be a phased or staged roll-out release, starting with 1% of users on Feb 28th. However, even if the app store listing reflects the change, some users may see an old app version until 100% roll-out completes, in a 2 week period.

For more details see Poly Support - Downloads & Apps.

Wow, time flies! It’s hard to believe that three years have passed since we first launched Poly Lens. From the outset, our mission has been to help you optimize your collaboration experiences. We understand that the success of your collaboration strategy hinges on the health and utilization of your deployed devices, which is why we have made it one of our top areas of focus.

To help you with that, starting today, Poly Lens offers a whole new way to visualize your data using the powerful tools built into Power BI. Visual Analytics with Power BI gives you the flexibility you need to supercharge your team's analytics with greater visualization and more insights around your Poly Lens data in a way that is more familiar to you. Included with Poly+ Enterprise and Elite services, you can now use the new Visual Analytics tool with Power BI to see your inventory of Poly headsets, conference phones, and video devices in a whole new light. Easily build reports based on device adoption, status, or inventory data or combine with other data sets to create a single pane of glass for your collaboration systems.

Setup is easy, and you'll love the starter dashboards designed to get you started with instant visualizations of your Poly Lens inventory. Don’t use Power BI? No problem, you can connect your preferred analysis tool to your Poly Lens Visual Analytics database to gain access to your device telemetry data and visualize it in a supported tool that works for you.

To get started, find the new tool by going to Go to the ACCOUNT menu > Manage Accounts. Select an Account from the list. Select Integrations > Visual Analytics.

For more information on how to get started, data organization, and schema diagrams, visit Poly Lens Help - Visual Analytics.

Note: Access to the Visual Analytics tool with Power BI is delivered as part of Poly+ Enterprise and Elite services.

Poly Lens is excited to introduce System Status information for the Poly X30, X50, X70 cameras, and the Poly G7500 video conferencing solution. The new System Status information provides more details around each Poly camera, making it faster to troubleshoot and eliminating the need for you to visit the IP address of each individual device to gather these details. This is one step closer to helping you manage your Poly devices through a single pane of glass.

Now in Poly Lens, you can simply navigate to any individual Device Detail page for the above Poly Lens cameras and see two new cards at the top of the page. One is called System Status and the other is called Software. The new System Status card will display the status of any connected, registered, or paired hardware or service. Hardware and services include but are not limited to the network connection, built-in camera, connected cameras, microphones, provisioning service and more. In the upper right-hand corner of this card, you can quickly see if there are any system issues with your camera. In addition, each hardware or service will have its own line with a green or red status icon next to it, showing a connected or disconnected state, respectively. To see a full list of hardware and services simply select System Status and see all the services, status and additional details about each hardware or service.

The new Software card at the top of the page provides the current device software, the policy associated with the device and the latest available software version. In the upper right-hand corner of the card, you can quickly see if the device has the most up-to-date firmware according to its policy or if there is an update available.

To access the new System Status information, simply visit the Device Details page of any Poly X30, X50, X70 or Poly G7500 in your Poly Lens inventory. For more details visit Poly Lens Help.

Enabled by Lens Integrations, Poly | HP Meeting Room Devices Become an Integral Part of Smart Buildings​

The Partnership with Neowit​

When you think of a Device Management Platform, you likely associate it with updating software, remotely monitoring devices, or deploying new configurations. Seldom, if ever, would you think about building management. However, the two are more closely related than you might think. By analyzing data from devices across the building, one can derive highly useful insights about space and resource utilization in the building. That is why we have partnered with Neowit, a fast-growing Smart Building Management start-up, that creates a single aggregated view of all devices in a building. All made possible by the Lens API.

What are Smart Buildings?​

Smart Buildings communicate with internal systems, devices, and sensors such as HVAC, lighting, alarms, cameras, etc. to self-regulate building operations, minimize environmental impact, while making it safer and more comfortable for occupants.

Powered by Internet of Things (IoT) and Power over Ethernet (PoE) technologies and others, smart buildings are poised to play an ever-increasing role in helping businesses manage the return to office and achieve sustainability compliance goals.

Some interesting examples of what Smart Buildings can do:

• Use people counting sensors to automatically turn off lighting, turn off air-conditioning, and trigger an autonomous disinfection process as soon as meeting rooms are vacated.
• Turn on the building tenant’s allocated space lighting systems as soon as tenant swipes their access card at building entrance.
• Increase ventilation as occupancy increases.

The Poly | HP and Neowit Advantage​

While Smart Buildings hold a lot of promise, without a single cohesive view of the data from the innumerable devices and sensors in a building, it is difficult for businesses to optimize space utilization, reduce carbon footprint and overall make smarter business decisions.

Further, people-counting and air quality sensors can cost anywhere from $1000 to $3000 USD. Poly | HP Studio X Series devices come with sensors built-in, which directly translates to cost savings.

That’s why Poly | HP has partnered with Neowit – a leader in Smart Building technology. Neowit’s flagship product (the Neowit Platform), is a modern, scalable IoT facility management and workplace portal. This platform provides comprehensive visibility into your office space and assets, by aggregating data from various IoT sensors and devices into a single pane of glass.

Lens Integrations – Poly Lens Management & Insights API​

The publicly available Poly Lens Management and Insight API supports all features in the Poly Lens admin portal. You can easily create API credentials right in Lens in Accounts > Integrations. Using these credentials, you can create an access token that in turn can be used to grant access of your Poly Lens tenant to third-party platforms such as Neowit.

Smart Buildings are the Future​

With environmental impact, financial and operational considerations, Smart Buildings are clearly an area of global interest. Making the best use of real estate through insights and analytics, provided by partnerships such as the one between Poly | HP and Neowit, which will undoubtedly deliver a better bottom line for business. Here’s a quick intro video about Neowit.