Owl Labs Meeting Owl 3-360-Degree, 1080p HD Smart Video
Owl Labs Meeting Owl 3-360-Degree, 1080p HD Smart Video Conference Camera, Microphone and Speaker (Automatic Speaker Focus & Smart Zooming and Noise Equalizing)
| Weight: | 1.18 Kilograms |
| Dimensions: | 11.1 x 11.1 x 27.2 centimetres |
| Brand: | Owl Labs |
| Model: | MTW300-2000 |
| Part: | MTW300-2000 |
| Colour: | Grey |
| Dimensions: | 11.1 x 11.1 x 27.2 centimetres |
Really good works perfectly and gives a really immersive experience
The software intelligence si awsome. Price is little high, but i am satisfied.
We love the owl for our company, it’s very easy to set up and use and has been a game changer for times when we have important meetings but are spreadout over several locations. The owl’s ability to hone in on who is talking but also show the entire room at the same time has been a solid win for us!
It’s a good product, automatic face catching, beautiful design, video and sound are good. But it’s so expensive, I would not recommend it to any friends..
This is so neat! Seems pretty intuitive, plug and go. Seems to be smart and know who is speaking and moving and where to focus. 360 angle. Has little lights that come on and look like eyes, and it hoots 🙂
Hootie has helped us out at a few “hybrid” meetings lately. Such a great tool to use when we don’t have the budget to mic up the whole room. It does have its limitations on sound if the room is larger and we had a few “low talkers” But overall, we love it and so easy to use and set up.
This camera is just what we needed in our conference room. Very good microphones and the focus on the speaker make it a much better system than a single focus camera.
A few things to know:
The management of the unit (updating firmware, changing audio and video settings, etc) is only done with a mobile app.
The microphone can pick up sound in a good-sized space very well, and the quality is above average, but depending on the size and audio dynamics of that space, you will very likely need to dial in the unit’s audio settings for crosstalk/echo and noise cancellation.
The camera quality is advertised as being 1080p, but because of the nature of the 360-degree camera and the digital zooming and cropping that the unit does to frame multiple participants, the image quality will be a bit grainy and noisy, especially at a distance or under harsh lighting. It is not unusable, but there are many instances where the image quality will not appear to be great.
Even with these caveats, the Meeting Owl Pro is a great tool to upgrade a meeting space without spending several thousand dollars. It will not provide the quality that a professionally-installed, dedicated in-room system will allow, but for the price, it provides a lot of flexibility and utility that will improve the immersion and engagement of your remote meeting participants.
Whats good:
* Setup took 60 seconds. Take out of the box, plug in, register on your phone, connect to your computer and start a Zoom call. Done.
* No micromanagement required, its voice detection and camera panning are excellent
* Non-intrusive design, people thought it was neat but weren’t distracted by it.
* A good value for money, given the alternative of managing mics and mixers and a much more intrusive seutp.
Whats not so good:
* The video quality was only 640×480 in zoom which made the images grainy.
* The audio quality is very low, very often it was hard to understand the speaker, especially if they had an accent or didn’t speak very loudly. Also when there were multiple people talking at one time they generally got garbled.
* In a ballroom with a dome overhead light it created a strange halo effect on the dome of the camera
I want to make a clear caveat that I wonder if I could have tuned it more for better quality. My event didn’t allow me time to do any testing or tuning before the event started, so maybe I could have done more, but if I could it wasn’t obvious how to do it.
This was an amazing product. Our group hoped it would be the answer to our ZOOM mates. It did not function as we needed with our computer equipment and so was returned.
The product is great. However there was no USA power cord. It came with 2 but they were for Great Britain and European….
Odd to not have one for US plugs?????
Super easy set up and works perfectly. I used it for a large conference workshop and it picked up all the voices in a u-shaped conference, and the camera focused on all the speakers and whiteboard when we used it. Highly recommend.
Second one I have purchased as my conference room / table was to long for a single owl to pick up good sound. Second one solved the problem and enhanced the video coverage as well.
After much effort to connect with Tech Support, they did reach out to me and did send me a US power cord. I’m pretty pleased with it now. Here’s my technical commentary:
The image resolution is nowhere close to my Logitech Brio, and the audio sound is not close to my Bose bluetooth speaker. BUT… BUT… since it now sits in the middle of the conference table it is close to everyone. The Owl multi-microphone array is very satisfactory at picking up the voices and is quite audible to the Zoomers. The echo-canceling speaker system seems flawless and sounds quite good. Their adaptive SW uses the microphone array to determine who the dominant speaker is and cleverly frames that person in the visual panel – a kind of closeup. It may show one or two other panels of other recent speakers – the pattern recognition SW that recognizes a human form is impressive. While the resolution isn’t 4K, the fact that it provides closeup panels of the current speakers is a better visual than my former high-res videocam at the far end of the room showing all the tiny faces somewhat inaudibly. It’s an excellent solution for our group and committee meetings.
You can read but ignore my earlier review, below:
Arrived quickly as it was fulfilled from here in the Bay Area – just in time for my important meeting to use it. BUT… I can’t plug it in! Comes with its power adapter and two power cords – one for Europe and one for Asia – but not the US.
Amazon support could not supply me with solution – said I’d have to go shopping for an adapter to US outlet. Owl Labs does not answer phone for Sales Support or Technical Support.
No idea how device performs. Blew my important meeting here in the USA.
This is the best 360 degree camera that money can buy. It is very easy to set up and use and it works extremely well. The only drawback is that it is expensive. I would highly recommend it to anyone who can afford it.
The Owl makes having hybrid meetings so easy. I can set it in the middle of the room and virtual attendees can see those in person and better feel they are part of the conversation!
It is great the way you can see everyone at the table or in the room during a video conference call. The picture is clear and the set up is easy. Enhances an online meeting experience.
I bought this for our conference room which seats 8 people. We placed in in the center of the table and it works great. It will even “zoom” in on the person who is currently talking while allow people on the other end of the call to see everyone in the room when no one is talking.
Got this for work when we do focus groups. For round table or conference room set ups this works wonders. For a classroom style set up it was a little more challenging. Super intuitive to set up and use. Sound quality blew me away.
– It has a wired connection to the computer which makes it incredibly inconvenient. We have cords running across the table and on the floor between the table and the computer, making it a trip hazard. Given the price, it seems like there should be the ability to wirelessly connect to the computer for sound and video.
– The app is tied to a person rather than being tied to the computer. This requires that in every meeting, there must be a person with the app on their mobile devices who is near the meeting room or in the meeting room to tweak any settings (e.g. focusing on a person or even switching pano 360 view on or off)
– It doesn’t always zoom in on the face of a speaker on the far end of the table but focuses instead on the side of the room. This has required that we have an extra device logged into Zoom in order for them to be able to clearly see the person at the head of the table. Some may think that a second device would help with this, but that would be overkill for the size of our conference room.
Overall, it has made a great improvement to our meetings, and we are glad we bought it and hope that perhaps some day these will be changed.
Great system for a conference room when you have to interface with remote team members. They have commented they feel much more a part of the meeting now that we have the OWL system. The video quality is good enough, not as clear as if you were focusing on only one camera direction. The “zoom” is just figuring out what part of the very wide image is talking or moving. So, they then present that slice of the image so its quality is slightly less than my Macbook Pro camera all by itself. But the sound quality and the feeling of participation well outweighs the small image degredation.
Amazing product, a little pricey but worth it. Downloading an app for your phone to control the Owl is a bit awkward. They should add software to also control the device from your laptop. If the volume is too high on the speaker it will get confused as to who is speaking. Other than that, it is an excellent product and works very well. The sound is extremely clear and the microphones pick-up anyone speaking even 30ft away. We were in a conference room next to a freeway entrance and when a loud vehicle outside went by, the Owl camera digitally followed the vehicle. It was doing its job.
We were hesitant to spend this much on a meeting camera, but we were pleasantly surprised at how well this camera works. It is so much more than a 360 camera, you are paying for the tracking software and development that went into making this an all-in-one meeting camera.
The camera quality is less than I expected, as the image can have a lot of noise. But that is the nature of a fixed lens camera that is using digital zoom to frame shots. Overall, I am pretty impressed at how well it does with following moving presenters and making sure to have 2-3 people shown at the same time if there is a back-and forth conversation.
Short story, wife accepted at awesome Ivy league school. Scholarship’s we agree duh you go! OK background over. We play Dungeons and Dragons and a multitude of other Role Playing Games so now we do a zoom meeting and she can still game. Our usual sessions go for about 6 hours and we have never had an interruption or problem with it. You can see that we have it on a small camera tripod with a small weight (don’t want it to break, they are wrist weights 5lb and hook on the bottom of the tripod all from amazon). We need the tripod so she can see the battle maps. The “Owl-vision” gives her 2 cameras one for the table and one that focuses on whomever is speaking, so she really sees everything going on. You can see her head in the pics as I run it from a laptop so we can see her as well.
Great product, good integration with Zoom and Teams but please, upgrade the camera. My cell phone is way better.
Also, connexion with enterprise WIFI should be available. if you don’t have a personnel router in your organisation, upgrade are not possible.
The Owl works as we were hoping, we have begun to have hybrid meetings and The Owl allows our club members to attend in-person or via Zoom using the Owl. Glitches need to be worked through but I believe we’ll be able to overcome them and find the Owl a useful tool.
Sound quality, microphones and picking up sound is outstanding. Video on the 360 degree view is excellent and the zoom in on speakers are a little grainy but good. I had already reviewed this product and I am changing the review because I knew something wasn’t right. I called tech support and they chalked it up to lighting, but, the support must have been reviewed by someone higher up and they contacted me again and said they would ship me a replacement because what they saw was not good. I received the new OWL Pro, and it is so much better! Now I am changing my thinking, this is an Outstanding Product. Thank you for the checks and balances your company has put into place to catch an issue like this one. Looking forward to this companies upcoming tech.
Works as advertised: connects easily to my Mac’s videoconferencing tool, and each detected face appears in a separate box. The app slid well conceived and allows for easy configuration of the Owl.
Although the 360 cam is HD, the picture becomes grainy when the owl zooms and crops a speaker. One has to put up quite a performance to get the owl to focus on one.
Owl will not connect to WiFi. Reported it to Owl Labs and their final response was that it sounds like it needs to be replaced. No further follow up.
Amazon technician offered me a discount.
I really liked the Owl Pro. It’s got a great camera, high framerate, and works right out of the box. Definitely check out Owl’s website for more info on the features. The only problem is the price point. It’s simply not worth $1,000.
My only other complaint would be, the video quality. It is not as bad as some have said, considering all that the OWL is trying to accomplish out of a single lens… ACTUALLY, it does an impressive job over all. My only complaint is at the point where the video is stitched back together is a bit fuzzy. If a person is sitting right at that spot, they will not look as good as everyone else. The problem is mostly solvable by simply turning the OWL so that spot is pointing at a doorway or window, or any dead spot where no one is sitting. The power of the mic is insane. We needed to turn it WAY DOWN so as not to pick up even the smallest sound in and out of the room. Speaker is also very good. Very capable of more than enough volume with decent levels of bass to give a warm over all tone.
Gave it 4 stars due to the few area’s for further improvement. Would love to see where this OWL gets to in it’s possible next iteration.
Overall happy with the purchase.
Simple to set up and works great for video conferencing, especially when you have more than one person physically in the room. Turns to each person as they speak, gives a 360 view of the room at the same time and has great built in speakers for people calling in by phone or speaking through their home computers or phones.
We have lots of blended meetings (some people in-person and others on Zoom). This product is perfect for placing in the middle of our conference table. The camera zooms in on whoever is talking, however there is about a 2 second delay. It also has a hard time locating the person to zoom in on when they are wearing a mask FYI. We love this product and many of our virtual participants appreciate it.
Pros: No softwaredrivers to install. Use with MS TeamZoomSkype you name it.
Face tracking is not bad but not perfect. I know this will get better with firmware upgrades.
Sound is very clear and everyone seems to hear me well.
Best of all it is so easy to use. I was up and running in 5 minutes
Cons: can’t use image background or blur your background for video meeting.
maybe a little longer cables.
It would be great to have an ethernet model that would also power the unit (POE)
Product concept is great, but actual ability to perform need to be improved.
– Owl is supposed to bring on screen person who is talking. Works well if people are talking in turn and each one talking for a stretch.
– The switching between speakers is a little slow for a lively discussion. By the time it zooms into a person, next person might already be speaking.
– Sound capture can be better (need to be more sensitive)
Overall an innovative and clever product.
Utilis lors des runions, webinaires, ce petit appareil est trs facile installer et grer, donc trs apprci par les utilisateurs. Il est compact et discret, le son est trs bon ainsi que l’image, trs bonne qualit. Je le recommande pour tout ceci toutefois, ce prix, la base pour ancrer devrait tre incluse. Je donne un 4.5 *, cause du prix.
So only have three meetings in with it so far but here are the pro’s and con’s
Pro’s
Easy setup, had it operational in minutes
worked with three different computers tested so far
audio quality is a 8 of 10
video quality is a 7 of 10 in good light but lower in low light situations
Con’s
everything in the video including whiteboards visible in the picture are backwards to the viewer!
it’s tracking of the voice features is not very good and very delayed sometimes 3 -4 seconds behind a voice
sometimes the video moves around and often it is angling down on the person speaking cutting off their face.
for a $1,000.00 camera i really expected better performance, it is no where nearly as good as an average cellphone camera maybe equivalent to cellphones from the 2015 era
I gave it a 4 stars because the technology is simply cool but it has a lot of things that need finessed to be a 5 star product…
It’s great, and working well for our office. Spotlight switching is slow. I thought the delay could be adjusted, but there is no such parameter. Takes around 8-10 seconds of “constant talking” to switch a speaker.
Picture quality can also be improved, but understanding that it is a 360o camera, I cannot expect too much.
Used the Meeting Owl for an important Town Hall meeting for our church. Had 10 people in the room and about 80 others join via zoom. Sound and picture was clear for both the people in the room and the zoom participants. The 360 strip along the top of the screen was quite helpful and the Owl tech tracked better than I expected as various people in the main meeting room spoke.
I can see “hybrid meetings” (where some join physically and others join via Zoom) continuing to be an important part of our church life even after the pandemic…and the Owl will be a real help in making those meetings effective and enjoyable. Impressed!
First I want to say, this is a great idea, and though at this price point, I don’t love the implementation, it has been a worthwhile purchase. But even for local video recording (not using any internet services), the picture quality is pretty mediocre. That is not surprising, considering it is using a fisheye type lens to capture the whole room at 1080P, and then zooming in on small parts of that image. Accepting that reality, the only complaints I have are that it cuts people off at the neck when they stand up and speak, even though their face is visible in the “whole room” strip at the top. I presume this is due to tracking two-dimensionally by sound. It would be nice if it was smart enough to look a little higher in the image for a talking face. The other thing I don’t like is the cumbersome app, but like the face tracking, this could greatly improve without the need for new hardware. I really hope they take software upgrades seriously, as I will definitely buy later models if this company proves themself to me through feature updates.
Meeting OWL Pro works!
The 360 degree camera is sharp and elevated (11 inches; 13 cm) above the table. It looks into my eyes and not up my nose. I do have a great nose, but I suppose that is my opinion! 🙂 The sound is rich and sharp.
TIPS: Please use a high-end laptop with MS Windows 10 (Windows 10 Pro is even better quality.) You must have a smart phone nearby to be able to modify camera angle.
BUY the OWL Pro for a room where the speaker may be 5 feet or more away from the OWL. Other microphones may not be able to triangulate on to the speaker.
Please add the OWL camera and microphone to your computer sound and video settings or your ship will sail without you!
Write a tip sheet for yourself as there are many steps to do before an online video meeting.
The microphone cutoff is superb. No feedback.
The microphone is more reliable than the microphone on my high end laptop. Earbuds and headsets are not always welcome by others or by the Court.
OVERALL: The Meeting OWL Pro, while not inexpensive, is a seriously good investment in office equipment.
HELPFUL HINT: By using newer computer equipment is that I connect a HD monitor via display port or HDMI connections to the laptop. That way all of the occupants in the room can see the host’s laptop screen as well.
NECESSITY: Practice with another person. Practice on the software product you are going to use. Finally, take the video tutorials on the meeting software.
Perfect for small to medium, the sound pick up is good for groups around it but for larger rooms or echos its not so good. it took time and was hard sometimes for the camera to idetifiy the speaker(s) and would go to empty frames. Not a bad thing but more of a limitation. I know they could do something with bluetooth additional speakers if they wanted or would “think” of it. The software part wouldnt even be that hard to write. BUT still a win and a good price for its roles. PTZ cameras alone are $500 a piece, this does not even include the mics, cables, etc. So good product and perfect.
I called in with questions from some negative reviews and the product itself. All my questions were answered so I ordered it. It was easy to download the app, register, set up and now operate. It works as advertised
Very interesting and innovative technology, will be perfect for a proper sized room.
A simple review:
A great all-in-one solution. We no longer have to identify ourselves because we put it in the middle of the table and it tracks our faces.
Very easy to use
Great video quality (getting a good image on a 40 mb connection.)
Great sound (mic and speaker)
The office has used it on multiple platforms but Zoom and Webex are the preferred applications
On initial setup, in the apps you will probably have to set the OWL to be the default camera/mic/speaker but it was a piece of cake.
UPDATE (same day):
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I left it on and connected, and magically it started working. I am not sure if there was some software update going on in the background (when I had launched it originally and connected it with the app I elected to do the software update immediately, which seemed to install faster than I expected). The support pages of Owl indicate a software update would take 15-60 minutes, while this one appeared to take 5. The reason I don’t think it was just a software update issue was that the microphone and speaker worked the entire time, and I unplugged and plugged it in numerous times.
UPDATE (later that day)
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The video only worked for that one session.
UPDATE (two weeks later):
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I had a positive interaction with customer support (all through e-mail); they quickly decided to ship me a replacement, and asked me to ship the original defective one back to them. The replacement one came very quickly, and worked well. Overall, quite pleased with this and would highly recommend it. Video quality is good, and audio quality surprisingly decent. The intelligence of jumping the video to different speakers works pretty well. We will likely use two Jabra 710s as the microphones going forward (note that you have to use the Owl as the speaker). Would have given 5 stars if the original shipment worked. Based on other recent reviews, it seems they had a recent bad batch in the manufacturing process.
Remote people have instantly commented on dramatic improvement in meetings… as you can probably expect. Several day trip meetings are now been postponed to “Owl It”. Quality is very good, so I can comment on how much this Pro version is versus the earlier one. I use Skype and MS Teams.
I do want to add a note about the case. It is a shame that Owl Labs don’t have a convenient case that comes with it. This isn’t the sort of hardware you want lying loose in a bag during transit.
I did discover that most Oculus Rift VR carry cases available on Amazon are an excellent dimension to fit he Owl (Pro or Regular) in with its power supplies and cables. I attached some photos of one Oculus Rift case I ordered. I cut the foam out and glued in some new foam to match the Owl. Works like a charm. I now can carry it separately to meetings or throw the case inside my larger everyday backpack. I just wish Owl Labs did include a case, even if it was an additional purchase option.
I honestly cant fault this for much, since there really isn’t anything else in the industry quite like it at the moment.
I do not keep my Owl in one location; rather, I travel to client locations and set up the owl so that my team members and others can join the meeting. I’ve had no issues setting it up each time. It is quick and easy through the app. I use GoToMeeting to run the meetings, which the Owl also very easily works with. I do wish there was a carrying case I could purchase for my needs, as I usually end up packing the Owl in a checked bag when traveling.
If you’re looking for a way to close the gap between your virtual and in person meeting attendees, I cannot recommend this product enough. It delivers exactly what is promised.