Using meeting owls
What is a Meeting Owl?
The Meeting Owl Pro is a 360-degree camera, mic, and speaker combined into one easy-to-use device. It creates the experience of in-person participation for hybrid teams. Meeting Owls will be used for hybrid teaching sessions, where some people are in a room, while others are joining the session remotely. The Owl will enable people in the room to be seen and heard by anyone who is remote, via Zoom or Teams.
What does it do?
Meeting Owls will be used as part of the set up for delivering hybrid teaching. It provides a 360-degree view of the room and has a 1080p camera that automatically zooms to respond to whoever is speaking. The Owl also acts as a speaker and microphone.
One Owl or Two?
Each Owl has an 18-foot audio pickup radius, due to it’s 8 smart microphones.
In a large room (e.g. lecture theatre), it may be useful to use two connected Owls to increase the audio/visual range – particularly if the session is interactive. Owls are paired using the Meeting Owl app (see below).
How do I use it?
The Owl connects to your computer via a simple USB-A/C cable.
When the Owl is connected to your computer, it may be detected and used automatically as the camera/audio for Zoom or Teams. Otherwise, it can be selected from the video/audio icons within either of those platforms.
See the ‘Quick Guide for using Owls below.
Setting up the Meeting Owls:
When your Owl first comes on, it will hoot twice to say it is ready. In addition, a black Owl icon will appear in the corner of the Zoom (or other) window.
When there are two Owls paired, two black Owl icons should appear in the corner of the Zoom window. If one of the Owl icons are in grey, that Owl is not yet connected. When the Owls are first connected for a meeting, it may take a minute or two for them to pair – then both icons will go black. When the Owls are successfully paired, their ‘eyes’ will be bright.
