What is a Microsoft Teams Room (MTR)?

A Microsoft Teams Room (MTR) is a meeting room running Microsoft's dedicated Teams Rooms software on certified hardware, signed in with its own Microsoft 365 resource account, so anyone can walk in and join the meeting on the room calendar in one touch. It is a room system, not the Teams app on a laptop plugged into a screen: the room itself is the participant, with a camera, microphones, speakers and display that Microsoft has tested against the app and that IT manages centrally. The distinction is covered in Teams vs Teams Rooms: what MTR adds.

What a Microsoft Teams Room includes

• Compute running the Teams Rooms app: a sealed Android appliance or a small Windows IoT PC.
• Touch console on the table showing the room calendar with a Join button.
• Certified camera: built into a video bar for rooms up to about 12 people, or a separate PTZ or multi-camera system for boardrooms.
• Certified microphones and speakers: inside the bar for small rooms, table or ceiling microphones with a DSP for large ones.
• One or two displays: a 55" screen for a huddle room, dual 65" to 86" screens for a meeting room or boardroom.
• A resource account and licence: Teams Rooms Basic (free for up to 25 rooms per tenant) or Teams Rooms Pro (about £36 per room per month), which adds AI camera features and the Pro Management portal.

What it costs

A certified Teams Room typically costs £3,000 to £8,000 installed for a huddle room, £8,000 to £20,000 for a 6 to 12 person meeting room and £25,000 to £60,000+ for a boardroom with tracking cameras, ceiling microphones and DSP audio, excluding the licence. Hardware by room size is set out on the Microsoft Teams Rooms page.

Why choose it over a laptop and a screen

The room joins without anyone's laptop, so the experience is identical in every room whoever turns up, and because every device is certified, firmware is tested against the app and the estate is monitored centrally. Most of the same bars are also certified for Zoom Rooms, so the hardware survives a change of platform. MTR is the right answer when Outlook owns the calendar and Teams owns the chat; if the business runs Zoom or Google Meet, the native equivalent sits inside the wider video conferencing systems choice.

Quick reference: certified compute (Android appliance or Windows PC) running the Teams Rooms app + touch console + certified camera, microphones, speakers and display + a resource account on Basic (free, up to 25 rooms) or Pro (about £36/room/month); one-touch join from the room calendar.