To give your users the best Microsoft Teams meeting and calling experience, you must consider the devices you give them. This eGuide explains the different types of user devices, from USB headsets to Physical Phones and personal all in one standalone audio/video/collaboration devices, called Teams Displays.
Choosing the right devices for your users is of key importance for Microsoft Teams success.
This guide to user devices covers:
Unlike some other platforms, where the platform provider makes both the platform and the user phones and devices, Cisco for example, Microsoft takes a certified partner ecosystem approach.
That means many companies make devices for Teams and Microsoft test and certify them as working and meeting the correct standards. Microsoft has more than 20 partners across user and room devices.
This creates innovation, competition and choice, but it can also make your device choice more complicated. This eGuide will help you in setting your user devices strategy.
Microsoft does also make some of its own devices, such as Surface Headsets and even the Surface Hub. These are also options to consider but tend to be for limited use cases.
The most common device by far, the headset is now the preference over a physical phone. Headsets come in various physical form factors and connectivity types.
Using the computers in built microphone and webcam will always lead to a poor user experience, particularly for those on the receiving end. These devices are not optimised for 2-way live audio and video, they will pick up noise and cause echo.
Microsoft Teams will do its best to optimise any audio/video source but starting with a good device will lead to a much better experience.
Headsets come in various form factors:
Headsets can be wired via USB (USB-A or USB-C), wireless with a Bluetooth dongle (again USB-A or USB-C). Most certified wireless headsets must have a dongle for PC and Mac use, though they can connect to mobile devices via Bluetooth directly.
A new generation of “dongle-less” Bluetooth certified devices are coming, meaning no dongle for the PC or Mac, but right now they are very limited.
For a more stable and longer-range wireless connectivity, DECT headsets are a good option.
Some headsets will also come with cradles for easy desk charging.
Wired headsets are often more reliable and easier to support but cannot be connected to mobile devices.
A great option for the traveling user who may end up needing good group audio in varying meeting rooms, for example a hotel conference room. Or the work from home office or personal office user who has a suitably quiet/private environment and does not want to wear a headset.
Personal speakerphones connect via USB or Bluetooth. These are typically a secondary device for a user.
Some include a battery to work on the road without any USB connectivity and can even be used as a USB charging device for other devices.
Consider their price point, audio processing ability and support lifecycle.
The inbuilt webcams in laptops are sadly often very poor quality. A dedicated certified webcam will make a big difference to users video quality, especially if they are in sub-optimal lighting conditions as they frequently are when working from home.
These devices come in at various price points. The most important factors to consider are:
Some also come in a “bar” form factor that include mic and speakers, for a webcam and speakerphone experience.
A dedicated webcam may seem like an optional purchase, but a good webcam makes a huge experience difference.
Confusing as the cloud service is called “Teams Phone”, but there are many certified Physical hardware Teams Phones. These can be signed in as a user's personal device or used with a Shared Device Licence as a “common area phone”.
While these are less popular these days, there are still good use cases for them.
Be aware Phone support timelines depend on the Android OS version they are running, so understand which version of Android OS the phones you are looking at run and what future Android OS update are likely.
A select list of standard SIP devices can also be connected to Teams. This is typically for extending the life of existing phones but can also be used for cheaper phones for simple physical phone scenarios.
Poly, Yealink and Spectalink all offer certified DECT handset solutions. Useful for scenarios where a wireless handset is required.
There are no directly certified “cordless” Wi-Fi handsets (though some “wired” handsets can connect to the network over Wi-Fi but have a physical cable for power so are “fixed location” Wi-Fi devices”).
In these scenarios a mobile handset can be used on Wi-Fi with the Teams client or some manufactures, such as Spectralink, produce dedicated Wi-Fi handsets that run the Teams mobile client.
Microsoft Teams displays are a category of all-in-one dedicated Teams devices featuring a touchscreen, for audio and video calling. They bring together chat, meetings, calls, calendar, and files into a single dedicated device.
These can be personal devices or hot desk devices.
They are well suited to the high-end work from home user who wants the convenience of a dedicated device with optimised audio and video experience.
These also run Android OS and have the same support timeline implications as physical Teams Phones
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It is always best to start with use cases. Consider
Where possible look to test out devices, by either buying a limited quantity or looking for a supplier who will do sale or return. With devices it is very hard to understand quality and experience from a spec sheet or website. It is always best to get hands on.
This is a great question. Some partners offer a full range of devices, from USB headsets to webcams to full room systems, such as Poly, others specialize, for example Spectralink only provide certified DECT phones.
In a medium or large environment it is highly likely you will need to work with multiple device partners to get the correct combination of devices for all your use cases. However, it is smart to rationalize the number of vendors you work with where possible.
Each vendor will have their own sales/support mechanism and own way to manage and update devices. Headsets for example are typically firmware updated by a desktop application running on the user's PC. If you have headsets from 5 different vendors in your environment, that makes management and overhead.
There is no “right” number but consider carefully the benefits of a specific device vs the benefits of minimizing the number of device partners you work with.