Posted by Vidya Nagarajan, Senior Product Manager, Chrome for Work

When we launched Chromebox for meetings last year, we wanted to help teams meet face to face, room to room, no matter where they’re sitting. Since then, a variety of companies like Xero and the Climate Corporation have chosen Chromebox for meetings to shrink the distance between remote offices.

Today, we’re expanding to bigger spaces. Chromebox for meetings now supports larger meeting rooms, so groups of up to twenty can seamlessly sync with colleagues around the world and still feel like they’re in the same place. Companies of all sizes, including Whirlpool Corporation, Netflix and Foursquare have tested Chromebox for meetings for the large room and said their users have enjoyed the video quality of the HD meetings.

“Expanding Chromebox for meetings to larger rooms continues to improve Whirlpool Corporation's face-to-face collaboration across our global meeting rooms, and with the price point and simple installation, we're able to bring room-to-room video conferencing to many more people,” says Troy McKim, Sr. Manager, Collaboration at Whirlpool Corporation. “In addition, Google's continuous enhancements to Chrome device management makes it easy for my team to remotely monitor the status of our global Chromebox for meetings units.”

New hardware to support larger rooms. The new Chromebox for meetings bundle equips rooms with the same instant face-to-face meeting functionalities as the original bundle, but with additional hardware to support larger rooms. New hardware includes:

  • Pan-tilt-zoom camera: USB-enabled 1080 HD PTZ delivers professional video quality for larger conference spaces.
  • 2x microphone and speaker: Capture conversations in longer rooms with an additional mic and speaker.
  • Enhanced dual screen support: Now you can connect two monitors to the PTZ camera and dual microphone and speakers, so your participants can get the richest video conferencing experience.

Better screenshare experience. Full-screen mode in Chromebox for meetings allows for better presentations. This is now available with any sized meeting room powered by Chrome.

More management controls. We’re adding more Chrome management controls to the admin panel. Admins can remotely monitor the health of their Chrome devices in one simple view to see which devices are online or offline. Chrome management also lets admins delegate administration of devices to other users besides the super admin.

Managing and deploying Chromebox for meetings for the large room is still just as simple. Chromebox for meetings runs on Chrome OS, which means it’s fast, secure and easy to manage. And setup and deployment for larger rooms is still just as easy — with Chrome management, admins can deploy devices in minutes and remotely manage tens of thousands of devices.

Chromebox for meetings for the large room is available in the US at $1999, which includes the first year’s management and support fee, with everything you need to get your bigger spaces going — just bring your own display(s). That means that you can get HD video meetings in many more meeting rooms at one-tenth the cost of legacy video conferencing solutions. And later this year, we’ll be expanding availability to different regions.

You can learn more about Chromebox for meetings on our website.