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Google recently teamed up with ASUS and CTL to brings premium video conferencing hardware to enterprise users. While this hardware is top-of-the-line, it’s overkill if you’re looking for a home or classroom solution. With price tags pushing $5K, these powerful and versatile hardware kits will find themselves right at home in a boardroom. That said, more and more companies are allowing workforces to continue working remotely. Many companies are even looking at ways to keep employees working from the home long term as the business landscape evolves as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. Having a reliable video conferencing set up away from the office has become a priority from countless workers, students, and consumers but a $3,000 hardware kit probably isn’t the best solution and CTL understands that.
This week, the company rolled out personal/family conferencing hardware kits aimed at bringing professional-grade video chat hardware into the home without the enterprise-level price tag. Built around CTL’s budget-friendly Chromebox CBx1, the “work from home” conferencing kits start at $599 and feature UHD cameras from Logitech along with a Logitech K400 wireless keyboard. Users can choose between the Celeron or Core i7 Chromebox with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. The Celeron model can be matched with the Logitech Brio UHD webcam for $599. The Brio can turn your external monitor or 4K smart TV into the ultimate video chat display. Perfect for having a remote family reunion or what have you.
Stepping up, the mid-tier package upgrades the webcam to the Logitech Meetup that features motorized pan/tilt, 5X HD zoom, beam-forming mic array, and in-built speakers. The upgrade takes the price to $1,199 which may sound a tad pricey but separately, the Chromebox, camera, and Chromebox would run you over $1,300 at retail cost. If you’re looking to get some extra power in your Chromebox, you can step up to the Core i7, 8GB/128GB variant with the Logitech Meetup camera and keyboard for only $1,599 and you’ll have more power than you’ll probably ever need. Oh yeah, CTL will add a custom paint job to your Chromebox as well. You can check out all three bundles below. As we move forward, I believe there will be a big market for home video conferencing hardware and CTL was smart to get ahead of this curve. I would bet that many companies will even provide stipends to purchase remote video hardware as the workforce of the future takes on a new look.
