Crestron Electronics, Inc.

A new offering from Crestron offers both BYOD and Microsoft Teams software solutions in one elegant package

March 28, 2023 - Imagine this: You're an enterprise that's standardized on Microsoft Teams® software. You've been looking for a wireless conferencing solution that's completely painless — a way to share content from any device with the push of a single button. No new apps to download. No new software to configure.

Now suppose you had a single device — just a dongle that plugged into a USB-C port — that did just that. Simply plug it in, push a button, and boom — instant collaboration.

Pretty cool idea, right?

Well, meet the new Crestron AirMedia® Connect Adaptor.

One-Touch Wireless Collaboration — On Nearly Any Device

The AirMedia Connect Adaptor looks pretty simple — but that belies its capabilities. The dongle appears a bit like an oversized hockey puck with a short, sturdy USB-C cable and an indicator light that lines the perimeter of the disc. While the dongle works with a variety of platforms, the coming rollout of the Microsoft-specific model has been especially buzzy news. There's magic in that "puck."

While AirMedia® wireless presentation and conferencing technology has been around for roughly a year now, this latest offering from Crestron is especially timely in the current state of "hybrid permanence" — most businesses have a blend of in-person and remote workers attending meetings large and small at any given moment. The same's true for the classroom, too — hybrid learning is another example of that blend of in-person and remote collaboration.

Platforms such as Microsoft Teams® Rooms software were built just for a moment like this — it's powerful, it's intuitive, and Microsoft partnered with a broad range of hardware manufacturers, Crestron notable among them. As Crestron's Lauren Simmen puts it, "Why would you need anything else?"

Simmen — a director of product marketing at Crestron — answers her own question: "Because there are more and more organizations that want bring-your-own-device — 'BYOD' — flexibility."

New Workflows, New Spaces

Now that hybrid work is the new normal, different types of meeting spaces are appearing. People are looking for ways to meet and collaborate outside of the four walls of a meeting room. Areas like lounges or casual sitting areas are now commonly used as meeting points. BYOD can bring the meeting to those spaces where dedicated conferencing solutions aren't always feasible. Solutions like AirMedia technology are especially handy for retrofitting traditional offices for the modern hybrid workforce, and it's an incredibly rapid way to bring Microsoft Teams functionality to those spaces.

Security's always a concern, too, but there's an elegant answer: The solutions Crestron is creating live on their own network.

Ultimately, though, having as many options as possible — while creating a consistent experience throughout an organization — is the goal, and a partnership such as this one provides just that solution for a business that's already standardized on the Microsoft Teams platform, according to Simmen. "BYOD is one collaborative solution in an organization," she says. "Microsoft Teams Rooms are another. Everything we've learned tells us that people want both.

"And we're the only company that can deliver them — together — like this."