Review Owl Labs Meeting Owl3 fun and smart meetings

Adam Munsterman

Vendor OWL Labs provides a new version of the meeting tool called Meeting Owl3 as a successor to the Meeting Owl Pro. The device is specifically intended for meeting rooms where several people participate in a meeting or when someone is giving a presentation.

Functional
The Owl3 is a conferencing tool for video and audio recording and playback in conference rooms. When you see the device, it looks like a gray owl. It is a 28 cm high, round and vertical device with a diameter of approximately 10 cm. covered in a woven fabric. The top contains a self-searching 360° full-HD camera (1920 x 1080 pixels). Internally there are also 8 directional sound-absorbing microphones, 3 omnidirectional loudspeakers and control buttons. At the bottom, easily accessible, 2 mute buttons and volume buttons can be found. Due to its compact construction and relatively low weight (1.2 kg), the Meeting Owl3 is easy to move from one room to another. An instruction card, with holder, is included.

Installation
After inserting the plug into the wall socket, the Owl3 reports an ‘owl sound’. For communication with the system, a 2-meter long USB-C cable is used and connected to a Mac/Windows system on which a meeting program is operational, such as Teams, Zoom, Google Meeting, etc. A USB-C/USB-A adapter is not included. It is a plug and play device that is immediately found by the system and is therefore immediately ready for use. Adjustments can still be made with the downloadable Meeting Owl app (for macOS/Windows/iOS/Android). are options Camera Lock and Zoom where the focus is placed on one person, Presenter Enhance where the camera actively follows the presenter, 360 Pano where a full panorama is visible at the top of the screen and finally an option to define an area that the Owl3 should ignore. For software updates and any future functions, the Meeting Owl3 must be connected to WiFi via the app. The audio and video range of a single unit is 5.5 and 3 meters respectively. For large rooms, an extra Owl3 can be added, which increases the audio/video range to 13/8.5 meters or an extra microphone for average rooms with an audio range of up to approximately 8 metres.

Practical test
We test the Owl3 in combination with an external microphone in a large conference room. The first test is through the CameraWindows app to test the image and Audacity to get an impression of the sound quality. As soon as the unit becomes active, we see the ‘eyes of the owl’ light up. Through the Owl Intelligence System the camera and microphone will automatically focus on the person speaking.
A precondition for the image is a well-lit meeting room where, due to the automatic fast focusing, the image looks good. In moderate lighting, light image noise quickly arises and thus loses sharpness. As soon as several people are detected, the image of the 360° camera automatically splits into several planes. Optionally, a 360° panorama can be displayed at the top of the screen. Detecting a user is reasonably fast and the image is displayed without distortion. The microphones receive the sound crisply and clearly. The received sound is also reproduced clearly by the 3 speakers and is optimized for speech.

Conclusion
The Owl3 is a fun and intelligent device for meetings with a minimum of 3 people. The suggested retail price indicates that this product is intended for the business market. For this price, we would also like to see a 4K image in combination with a slightly brighter camera lens.

Owl Labs Meeting Owl 3 with Expansion Mic
MSRP: € 1149.00 and € 275.00 for the extra microphone
+ intelligent meeting system
+ expandable

– business price
– not yet 4K