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g/av • Posted by u/av_wizard •

Teams Room certified does not mean it works — three rooms, three different failures Install

Deployed nine Teams Rooms for a client this quarter. All certified hardware, all on the Microsoft-published bill of materials. Three of them had problems that the certification does not catch, and all three were the room, not the kit.

Room 1 — the glass room. Two full glass walls, a glass table, polished concrete. RT60 around 1.4 seconds. The certified mic array is specified for rooms up to 0.6. Far-end participants said everybody sounded like they were in a bathroom, which they effectively were. Fixed with acoustic panels the client did not want and eventually accepted after I recorded a before and after and played it in a meeting.

Room 2 — the HVAC room. Supply diffuser directly above the ceiling mic array. NC-42 at the mic position. Certification testing does not include your building's air handler. Moved the array four feet and the noise floor dropped 9 dB.

Room 3 — the network room. Everything perfect on paper, video freezing intermittently. QoS was configured on the switch and not on the wireless controller, and the room console was on wifi because the millwork had no data drop. Ran a drop. Done.

The pattern: certification tests the hardware in a reference room. Nobody certifies your room. If you are quoting these, walk the space with an SPL meter and a tape measure before you quote, or you will eat the difference.

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u/dante_dave •

The RT60 point deserves its own thread. Every conference room built in the last decade has hard surfaces because that is the architectural fashion, and every one of them is acoustically hostile.

The measurement takes four minutes with a phone app that is good enough for a go/no-go read. Do it during the site walk and put the number in your proposal. Then when the client declines the treatment you have a document saying you told them, and when they call in six months complaining you have a paid change order instead of an argument.

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u/av_wizard OP •

Putting the number in the proposal is the part I have started doing since room 1 and it has already saved me once. It converts "the AV does not work" into "we declined the acoustic scope," which is a completely different conversation.

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u/crestron_carl •

Room 3 is the one that gets everybody. Millwork drawings almost never show data and the AV drawings almost never show millwork, so a room console ends up on wifi because that is the only thing available on install day.

I have started requiring a data drop location callout on the millwork shop drawings as a submittal condition. It is an annoying thing to insist on and it has eliminated the problem entirely.

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u/bas_brianna •

The diffuser above the mic array is a coordination failure that happens on every single project because mechanical is laid out before AV is even awarded. The ceiling plan is full by the time you get there.

If you can get in early enough, ask for the diffuser locations and lay your mics off them. If you cannot, budget for a relocation and say so out loud during the walk. It is rarely more than a couple hours and it is always cheaper than the alternative of arguing about whether the mic is defective.

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u/rack_randy •

Recording the before and after and playing it in a meeting is the move. Nobody approves acoustic treatment from a spec sheet. Everybody approves it after hearing thirty seconds of their own conference room.

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u/av_wizard OP •

It was the only thing that worked. I had explained RT60 twice in writing and got nowhere. Played eight seconds of a recording and had a signed change order the same afternoon.

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