Video Conferencing Room Design: From Huddle to Boardroom

Not every meeting room needs the same equipment or design approach. The industry generally categorises rooms into four tiers based on occupancy:

• Huddle / Focus Room (2–4 people): A small, informal space for quick stand-ups, one-on-ones, or focused work sessions. Typically 6–10 square metres.
• Small Meeting Room (4–8 people): The most common room type in modern offices. Seats a team around a table for regular project meetings. Typically 12–20 square metres.
• Medium Conference Room (8–14 people): Used for cross-team meetings, client presentations, and training sessions. Typically 20–35 square metres.
• Boardroom (14+ people): A large, formal space for executive meetings, board sessions, and all-hands presentations. Typically 35–60+ square metres.

The equipment you need scales with room size. A huddle room can get by with an all-in-one video bar, while a boardroom requires separate cameras, ceiling microphones, and multiple displays. The table below summarises recommended gear for each room type.

Camera positioning has a direct impact on how natural the video experience feels for remote participants. Follow these principles:

• Eye-level mounting: Place the camera at seated eye level (approximately 110–120 cm from the floor) or just above or below the display. This creates a natural line of sight and avoids unflattering angles.
• Centre of the display: Mount the camera directly above or below the centre of the main screen so that when participants look at remote attendees on screen, they appear to be making eye contact with the camera.
• Avoid backlighting: Never place the camera facing a window. Bright backlighting causes silhouettes and forces the camera's auto-exposure to darken faces. If windows are unavoidable, install blinds or choose a camera with strong backlight compensation (WDR).
• Field of view: Ensure the camera's horizontal field of view covers all seat positions. A 90–120° wide-angle lens works well for huddle and small rooms. For longer boardroom tables, a PTZ camera with auto-framing or speaker tracking is preferable.

Audio quality is arguably more important than video quality in a conference — poor audio causes fatigue and misunderstanding far more quickly than a fuzzy picture. The key concept is pickup range: every microphone has a maximum distance at which it can clearly capture speech. Tabletop microphones typically cover a 2–3 metre radius, while ceiling microphone arrays can cover 4–6 metres per unit depending on ceiling height and room acoustics.

For medium and large rooms, divide the table into zones and assign a microphone to each zone. Ceiling arrays with beamforming technology (such as those from Shure, Sennheiser, or Biamp) can electronically steer pickup beams toward active speakers, rejecting ambient noise from HVAC, projectors, and side conversations. If using tabletop microphones, place one pod for every 3–4 seats and ensure they are positioned at least 1 metre apart to avoid phase cancellation.

Video conferencing is bandwidth-sensitive and latency-sensitive. Each room needs a reliable network connection with the following minimums:

• Bandwidth per room: 4–8 Mbps symmetrical for a single 1080p video stream. If the room uses content sharing alongside video, plan for 10–15 Mbps. 4K video conferencing requires 15–25 Mbps.
• Latency: Below 150 ms round-trip for a comfortable conversation. Below 100 ms is ideal.
• Jitter: Below 30 ms. Jitter causes audio glitches and video artefacts.
• Packet loss: Below 1%. Even small amounts of packet loss cause visible pixelation and audio dropouts.

Use wired Ethernet for room systems wherever possible. Wi-Fi introduces variable latency and contention, especially in dense office environments. If Wi-Fi is the only option, ensure the room has strong signal strength (above -65 dBm) on a 5 GHz or 6 GHz band with minimal channel congestion.

Room acoustics are the most overlooked aspect of video conferencing design. Hard surfaces — glass walls, concrete ceilings, timber desks — reflect sound and create reverberation that makes speech difficult to understand for remote participants. Even the best microphone struggles in a reverberant room.

Basic acoustic treatment does not have to be expensive or ugly:

• Acoustic ceiling tiles: If the room has a suspended ceiling, use high-NRC (Noise Reduction Coefficient) tiles. An NRC of 0.7 or higher is recommended.
• Wall panels: Fabric-wrapped acoustic panels on at least two opposing walls significantly reduce flutter echo. Focus on the wall behind the camera and the wall opposite.
• Soft furnishings: Upholstered chairs, carpet or carpet tiles, and curtains all absorb sound. Avoid all-hard surfaces wherever practical.
• Glass walls: If the room has glass partitions, apply acoustic film or install curtains to break up reflections.

Most modern room systems are designed for a specific platform — Microsoft Teams Rooms or Zoom Rooms — or operate as platform-agnostic devices that work with any service via USB or SIP/H.323.

Microsoft Teams Rooms run on certified hardware from vendors like Logitech, Poly, Yealink, and Neat. The room system runs a dedicated Teams application with one-touch join, calendar integration, proximity join via Bluetooth, and management through the Teams Admin Centre or Intune. Teams Rooms require a Microsoft Teams Rooms licence (Basic is free for up to 25 rooms; Pro adds advanced management and analytics).

Zoom Rooms similarly run on certified hardware with a dedicated Zoom application. They support Zoom's Intelligent Director for multi-camera switching, Zoom Whiteboard, and management through the Zoom admin portal. A Zoom Rooms licence is required per room.

If your organisation uses both platforms (or others like Google Meet and Webex), consider a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) approach where the room provides a USB camera, microphone, and display, and users connect their own laptop to run whichever platform they need. This is common in huddle rooms and small meeting spaces.