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Tech Review

Aug 31, 2023

The Boom UNO is solid, looks modern and is available in black or white for Professional video conferencing meetings. This comes with a USB 2.0 cable that connects to your computer and fits directly on the bottom of the kit, The length of the cable can be expanded via the supplied extension cable ( In the box: UNO, USB 2.0 cable, USB extender, quick guide Cable length: USB cable: 152.4cm USB extension: 183cm) allowing for additional distance from your laptop. The kit is designed for areas in Huddle Room, Executive Office, Telehealth but can be used in any area required for conference calls as with Pc Mac laptop Desktop. It has a cylindrical shape with a wide-angle camera on the top and a speakerphone on the bottom. The device Dimensions are 181mm x 62mm x 62mm) Weight: is 465g while solid on a surface. The device is designed as a collaboration solution with HD video and omnidirectional speakerphone

Package Contents

UNBOXING

Features:

Setup & use:

The Boom UNO is easy to set up and use as required no additional software to be manually downloaded, Once this is plugged into the Laptop USB port the installation of the drivers and software is done in the background. You can then use it with any video conferencing platform such as Zoom, Teams, Webex, Meet, Bluejeans, GoToMeeting, Skype etc. The device supports multiple resolutions up to 1080p at 30 frames per second and has a plug-and-play feature that makes it compatible with Windows, Mac OS X and Chrome OS.

When in use the green light indicated use, or the Red light when muted, The lens can be slightly adjusted manually up or down. Once connected to eg a team call the kit defaults on the system to the Audio/video settings. The process of connections worked seamlessly and efficiently.

Once connected which was simple and easy the basic in terms of volume up, down mute worked.

A niggle in terms of the connections was noted in Teams & Youtube, On turning up the volume on 2 separate modern Windows laptops, the volume was increased/decreased but not shown on your tube or Team calls, When the mute was pressed on a team call, the call muted & change to red but again the mute symbol within the team call did change to advise muted. ( Technically this worked as expected but not the indication we have become familiar with )

The Audio when increased/decreased via the Uno up/ down buttons, had an effect of a step down of the volume rather than a liner approach noticeable when going from a low volume to 0 volume quickly, typically the frequency of calls on other devices gradually fade away while with Uno this audio when from low to zero.

The Brand: Boom Collaboration is a company that specializes in video conferencing and collaboration tools founded in 2020 with their Headquarters in Austin, Texas, they also offer a range of high-quality cameras for video conferencing. Their logo boasts "We are on a mission to make Meetings Better. Simply." Their Specialties include Videoconferencing, Collaboration Hardware, Video conferencing cameras, Webcams, Hybrid work solutions, Work From Home Solutions, All-In-One devices, PTZ 4K cameras, Distance learning, Telehealth, Huddle rooms, Intelligent AI solutions, Audio Visual Installations, NDI compatible cameras,

Warranty:

Boom Collaboration have got this right in terms of a 3-year warranty and an optional 5-year Boom Care plan which is an indication of their confidence in their brand.

Conclusion

The Boom UNO is a compact all-in-one high-quality audio and video device for use in small meetings, home or setting that required a video conferencing option. The kit is compact and I would like to see an option of a USB C cable and an option to connect to a phone, Bluetooth or via the USB C cable to increase the flexibility/option of the kit. The extension cable is excellent allowing to extend of the distance of the cable as required,

The colours of the screen are great to see in terms of Green and Red, but on testing on a team's call, the mute does as required on the call but does not change the software mute icon to show mute. Similarly, the volume up/down features works but again the software does not show the increase on eg YouTube or MS Teams.

The setup and use are easy requiring no technical skills in this area with the extension cable a bonus to facilitate the placing of the kit further away from the laptop.

The audio experience in terms of moving away from the mic a distance worked quite well for calls where users did not experience a major deterioration of the call quality as I moved further away from the 360° omnidirectional microphone, This was superior to many tested before due to the dynamic noise reduction and echo cancellation features.

The camera has a View angle: of 120° with a Resolution: of 1920 x 1080. This gave a good quality picture while when tested with one person on the call or a team the autofocus of a team's call did not appear to have much of an effect. The camera can be manually slightly tilted up and down while not a PTZ camera nor does it zoom in out to focus on an area. The camera cannot be manually blocked out rather have to do this via the laptop etc The quality from the CMOS Image sensor ( (1/2.8)) gave a good quality picture at @30fps. The kit works as required with a simple-to-use setup with clear features colour coded for effective calls and audio

BUY

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