IT Pro Verdict
Pros
- +
Stocked with features
- +
Compact design
Cons
The Rally Bar Mini is ideal for SMBs that want a professional meeting room solution that's more discreet than Logitech's mighty Rally Bar. It will also appeal to tidy minds as it employs the same rear cable management bay as its bigger brother, ensuring all your wires are safely secured.
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It may cost around £900 less than the Rally Bar and be nearly 20cm narrower in width, but it doesn't compromise on features. The central 4K UHD camera offers motorised pan, tilt and zoom (PTZ) functions, it employs the same six-microphone beamforming array for auto-framing of active participants, and has a 70mm woofer and two 38mm mid-range speakers that all use an anti-vibration system to improve sound quality.
The smaller lens next to the camera is Logitech's AI Viewfinder, which enhances its RightSight technology for improved framing and focus accuracy and provides people counting and room usage analytics. The last two features are accessed from the Logitech Sync cloud portal, and we used the local Sync app on our host PC to add the camera and its meeting room details to our account.
The Rally Bar Mini supports three operational modes. You can use it with a dedicated room computer or let users bring their own device and load a VC app of their choice. In appliance mode, Logitech's on-board Android-based CollabOS turns it into a standalone system that runs certified VC apps including GoToRooms, Teams Rooms and Zoom Rooms.
Plug Logitech's optional Tap controller panel into the Rally Bar Mini and you can use its colour touchscreen to quickly set up meetings. A Bluetooth proximity sensor is provided for checking room availability and joining meetings from a mobile.
BYOD mode is quick to use: simply connect a monitor and follow the onscreen wizard. You can join a wireless or wired network and add your Sync account details, but we found it quicker to attach a USB keyboard and mouse to enter our details rather than use the Bluetooth remote.
Connecting a Windows 10 Pro PC to the camera's HDMI-in port allowed us to view its screen on our meeting room monitor and use our local Teams, Skype and Zoom VC apps.
Configuring the Rally Bar in appliance mode is equally swift: we chose the Teams option from the wizard, logged in to our account and were presented with the familiar Teams interface for quickly starting or joining meetings.
The camera may have only a 4x digital zoom (the Rally Bar combines 5x/3x optical/digital zooms) but video quality impresses, with remote attendees praising the pin-sharp image and clean colour balance. Brightly lit backgrounds weren't a problem as Logitech's integral RightLight feature easily
compensated for them.
Speaker tracking isn't great as, unlike digital PTZ models, the camera has to physically move the lens to stay on point. During a Teams meeting, we moved around the room as we spoke and found the camera could take up to eight seconds to respond.
On the plus side, the integral mics delivered great sound quality, with remote participants saying they could hear us clearly even when we moved four metres away. The triple speakers aren't diminished by the smaller enclosure, as maximum volume was far too loud for our 24m2 room.
Logitech's Rally Bar Mini offers everything SMBs need for professional meeting room VC services. The three operational modes make it versatile and, although speaker tracking can be sluggish, it delivers excellent video and audio quality, with Logitech's Sync cloud service providing valuable remote management features.
