It’s easy to go into “Why didn’t I think of that?” mode when learning about BluVanti‘s solution for leveraging Bluetooth connectivity and linking anybody’s cellphone to a conference room’s audio conferencing solution.
In other words, you dial and connect through your cellphone with a BluVanti app and connect through whatever audio conferencing solution and loudspeakers are in that conference room.
It’s simple, and it makes sense for anybody that has ever scrolled (or watched somebody scroll) through their phone looking for a phone number with one hand while dialing a conference room with the other.
The folks who did think of that patent-pending technology are Communa’s Brandon Gramse and Ingolf de Jong. They teased it in a suite off the show floor at last year’s InfoComm, and were back at InfoComm 2015 to discuss actual deployments.
Integration firm General Communications, where de Jong is president and principal partner, has installed BluVanti for clients. CI talked to de Jong talked about how the BluVanti experience will benefit client and installer.
Tell me about a specific project in which the BluVanti solution has been deployed.
What [this software manufacturer] really wanted was an easy way for their executives to connect. Even though they write software they still needed a little help. They wanted to have very simple systems in their conference rooms — eight total rooms — and they wanted to be able to have their executives be able to pop in and easily start using it…. When we explained what BluVanti does they were really excited. They weren’t aware that anything existed like it. The first two words out of their mouths were, “That’s awesome!” It’s easy to understand because most people use Bluetooth in their cars.
Does it help that there is no competition for this solution?
They still have their conferencing solutions. This just provides the additional benefit or value of being able to use their cell phones in their rooms. We did integrate the existing Lifesize for video conferencing. Audio is tied into their VoIP system. Probably with hindsight they would have done without that because they just use cellphones.
What kind of feedback have they given you so far?
They just keep saying it works. It’s just simple. It lets them immediately start a meeting when they walk into the conference room. The [CEO] is in his 50s and there is a wide range. Everyone knows how to use a cellphone. You have all your contacts on your cellphone. It crossed [generations]. The younger workers use it immediately, but our contact says the CEO loves connecting to it.
For what types of applications do you recommend this product to other integrators?
In essence any room where you traditionally today have phone conversations, any conference room, any board room, in health care, in education — it’s a broad brush. With the changes in education as far as flipping the classroom and higher education, they now have the ability for the professor to be able to connect remotely as well without having to run a phone line to the room.
What are biggest benefits – “pros” – for an installer using this product?
If you know what you’re doing, it’s easy. Implementation is a piece of cake. It’s very applicable for almost every client, even job site trailer applications. If there is a room of people regardless of industry and they’re going to be using their phone, this is the ideal solution. Also, the dealers have this client base and this gives them that additional benefit of going back to their clients and saying this is an easy add-on.
What are the biggest negatives – “cons” – for an installer using this product?
It’s the setup and it requires some fine-tuning. Any conferencing codec would have that same challenge, but it requires a knowledgeable person to set it up. That also makes it good for the [integration] channel.
Product Specs
- Bluetooth device that provides professional cellphone conferencing.
- BluVanti acts as an interface to room audio systems, allowing integration of multiple microphones and room loudspeakers
- All audio signals connected to the input of BluVanti are sent to the far-end, and all audio signals connected to the output are signals received from the far-end
- Allows for a single connection at a time
- Users can place/receive a call on their cellphone and can choose to broadcast the call to/from the room audio system by pressing “headset” on the cellphone
- One input line level
- 96-foot Bluetooth range
- Up to 16 paired devices at a time (one connected)
- Ethernet enabled
- Wi-Fi enabled
- MSRP: $1,695
