Ergonomics
Ergonomic and stylish designs
Choosing the most appropriate system shape
When we first started designing our All-in-One visual collaboration systems, our main concern was not just to create a device that would look trendy and neat without being bulky. We wanted to design a device that would solve the challenges we had been facing for years when conducting meetings and video calls. The existing technologies already offer rich features to users, however the way it has been bundled and used does not allow users to meet and collaborate naturally. Technology was always in the way forcing users to act differently than how they would have acted in technology-free meetings and gatherings.
We chose to design systems that would be used in the center of the meeting table for all the advantages the Centre of Table (CoT) concept offers. Both the Triangular shaped PTE Trio and the cubical shaped PTE Quattro offer many advantages due to these chosen shapes.
Panoramic coverage of the room with radially symmetrical shapes:
Since the Silex PTE systems are designed to be placed in the center of the meeting room table, then participants are expected to sit around the table. The chosen shapes offer a radial symmetry and cover all the corners of the room:
Participants are all seated at an equal distance from the system and have a camera and a touch screen facing them no matter on which side of the table they choose to sit. This allows each participant to look at a screen, to be captured and framed by a camera and to be able to annotate content on the screens from his chosen seat.
The Silex PTE Trio is a perfect fit for a round table with 6 participants, allowing 2 users per side. The Silex PTE Quattro is designed for squared tables with 8 participants, allowing 2 users per side.
Since the Silex PTE systems are designed to be placed in the center of the meeting room table, then participants are expected to sit around the table. The chosen shapes offer a radial symmetry and cover all the corners of the room:
Participants are all seated at an equal distance from the system and have a camera and a touch screen facing them no matter on which side of the table they choose to sit. This allows each participant to look at a screen, to be captured and framed by a camera and to be able to annotate content on the screens from his chosen seat.
The Silex PTE Trio is a perfect fit for a round table with 6 participants, allowing 2 users per side. The Silex PTE Quattro is designed for squared tables with 8 participants, allowing 2 users per side.
Since the Silex PTE systems are designed to be placed in the center of the meeting room table, then participants are expected to sit around the table. The chosen shapes offer a radial symmetry and cover all the corners of the room:
Participants are all seated at an equal distance from the system and have a camera and a touch screen facing them no matter on which side of the table they choose to sit. This allows each participant to look at a screen, to be captured and framed by a camera and to be able to annotate content on the screens from his chosen seat.
The Silex PTE Trio is a perfect fit for a round table with 6 participants, allowing 2 users per side. The Silex PTE Quattro is designed for squared tables with 8 participants, allowing 2 users per side.
Optimal placement of the speakerphone
A Sennheiser omni-directional speakerphone is embedded on top of the Silex PTE systems offering a perfect audio quality. The placement of the Speakerphone corresponds with the exact center of the table towards which all participants sitting at an equal distance from the system, are looking. Therefore, all participants can hear equally well and their speeches are perfectly picked up equally.
Perfect placement of the cameras
The way the cameras are distributed allows a perfect coverage of the room from the center of the table:
- 3 HD cameras: one on each of the 3 sides of the PTE Trio offer a near 360 degrees view of the room
- 4 HD cameras: one on each of the 4 sides of the PTE Quattro offer 360 degrees view of the room
On both devices, each camera is placed right above the device’s screen, almost at eye level. In video calls, this offers a perfect eye contact with all the participants sitting around the Silex PTE. Compared with other types of videoconferencing systems, the eye contact offered by Silex PTE systems is the most natural eye contact with all the participants in the room (not just a few). Furthermore, participants are well framed by the camera facing them, so remote participants can make out their facial expressions easily.
Screens dimensioned for an optimal viewing experience
Placing the screens in the center of the table allows users to be focused on the meeting while seeing the content and any video participants at the same time. Moreover, the system’s displays are made of 17.5” screens, dimensioned this way for two main reasons:
- The height of the system doesn’t hide the local participants from each other. Each participant can look at the screen while having the others in his field of view. The communication in therefore always focused with a perfect eye contact between all participants locally and over video while perfectly seeing the content as well
- The dimension of the screens allows an optimal viewing experience for all the participants sitting around the table. Indeed, if participants are looking at a big wall-mounted screen, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are seeing the content well. Two important factors affect the viewing experience: the size of the screen and the distance from which a person is looking at it. To get the same viewing experience from two different screen sizes, the viewing distance changes based on Thales mathematical theorem, illustrated below.
With a Silex PTE system, all participants would be sitting at an arm’s distance. This corresponds to 70cm on average. To get the same viewing experience when looking at a wall mounted screen located at around 3.3m away from the viewer, the size of the wall mounted screen should be around 84”. These conditions are not always met in traditional meeting rooms, because either the screen is undersized or because some participants are sitting too far from the screen. When using a Silex PTE CoT system, all participants are seated at an equal distance from the screen and they all enjoy a perfect viewing experience.