Ever been flummoxed by poor audio or patchy video quality while trying to attend — or worse, host — a conference call? Good quality equipment can go a long way to helping you achieve the gold standard in video conferencing; a meeting that flows as naturally as if your colleagues were in the room with you. 

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But what are the must-have items if you want to run a successful video conference? Whether you’re back working in your usual office space or still running operations from home, prep for your next conference with the lowdown on the best tech.

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What equipment do I need for a phone or video conference?

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A phone conference needs dedicated equipment to allow multiple lines to dial in at once and ensure the audio is clear for everyone. Video conferences need both audio and visual equipment that can capture and project sound and picture quality for an entire meeting room. Most offices need to be able to host both phone and video conferences, so we’ve picked out some of the top tech on the market today.

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What’s the best conference phone?

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There are many options, from pure telecommunication conference phones to more advanced all-in-one video conference devices.  As a general rule, you’ll want to ensure you have 360 audio capture from your conference phone, to pick up the voice of every speaker in the room no matter where they’re sat. 

• Yealink CP960 has 3 microphones, noise-proof technology and features a touchscreen, which stops it looks dated like a lot of conference phones.
• Poly Trio 8800 features Poly’s NoiseBlockAI to keep distracting sounds like seat creaking and paper shuffling at bay and streamlines the process of joining a meeting with one-step access.
• Avaya B100 Series conference phones have a conference guide and recording capabilities built-in and feature multiple microphones which cover audio for up to 750 square feet.

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