What are the best meeting room cameras?

Meeting room cameras fall into three categories, and the right choice depends on room size, layout and whether the room is fixed-front (boardroom) or non-directional (collaboration). The three categories are front-of-room video conferencing bars, separate PTZ cameras, and 360-degree or AI-framing devices.

Front-of-room VC bars combine camera, microphone and speakers in a single unit that mounts under the display. The Logitech Rally Bar, Poly Studio X30 and X70, and Yealink MeetingBar A20, A30 and A40 are the proven UK options. They auto-frame the active speaker, certify natively against Microsoft Teams Rooms and Zoom Rooms, and suit huddle rooms and standard meeting rooms (up to roughly 12 people) where the camera always faces the same wall.

Separate PTZ cameras (Aver, Lumens, Vaddio, Sony SRG) earn their place in larger rooms, training rooms and any space where you need optical zoom, multiple camera positions or a presenter-track shot that follows a speaker around the room. They feed into a separate codec, room PC or video processor, and increase install cost and complexity but give the production-grade framing larger boardrooms need.

360-degree and AI-framing cameras (Logitech Sight, Owl Labs Meeting Owl 3, Poly Studio E70 with Director AI) suit collaboration layouts and round tables where there is no fixed front to the room. They place a single camera in the centre of the table and stitch or crop the view so remote participants see whoever is talking without the room needing a directional layout.

Comparison:

Picking the camera is part of designing the broader meeting room AV system so the camera, microphone and display work together. For platform-specific certification (MTR, Zoom, Webex, Google Meet) the camera choice has to match the video conferencing platform you standardise on across the estate.

Quick reference: VC bar for small to mid rooms, PTZ for boardrooms and training, 360-degree for collaboration layouts.