4 Easy Steps for Choosing Ideal Smart Projector for Your Business

Do meeting collaboration challenges exhaust your energy and focus? Does the presence of multiple personal devices disrupt your meetings all too often? Then maybe it is time for you to upgrade your meeting environment towards better collaboration and productivity. A great way to do this is by going with a smart projector.

Smart projectors are one-stop solutions for various business needs, improving productivity, efficiency, and collaboration in meeting rooms. But with a growing number of smart projectors available on the market, how do you choose the right one for your business meetings?

To help you make that decision, we have prepared a list of four easy steps to follow and discover the right smart projector for your meetings. Let’s take a look at the aspects of a smart projector you should check before making a purchase decision.

Good smart projectors take into account the latest business trends and supports them. With Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) being implemented across companies worldwide, a good smart projector needs to solve the challenges presented by BYOD, especially in meeting rooms.

The projector should be compatible with Windows, Android, macOS, and iOS devices to ensure no compatibility issues pop up during meetings because of the variety of devices present in any given meeting these days.

The smart projector should facilitate a driver-less environment and function optimally without additional software or apps. The projector must allow easy casting right from users’ mobile phones and laptops, so that casting doesn’t require more than two simple steps using Google Chrome.

A really good smart projector also allows users’ mobile phones to be converted into remote controls so your team can manage the projector directly the familiarity of their own devices. 

A major reason why managers nowadays are banning mobile phones and laptops from meetings is because of the distractions they pose, resulting in lower productivity. To tackle this problem, a smart projector should create a PC-free meeting room while fulfilling the meeting’s requirements.

To create PC-less meetings, a smart projector should be equipped with an Account Management System (AMS) which enables easy access and management of company files directly over the cloud. It should have USB ports and support direct casting of all major file formats without dependency on other devices. Direct access to the internet is another feature that should be present in a smart projector to allow users to browse the internet without any cumbersome setup or reliance on extra devices, which is especially useful for brainstorming sessions. A smart projector with built-in business applications is great for creating PC-free meetings. It should also allow the IT team to install additional apps to maintain corporate security and keep the projector up to date.

Smart projectors bring productivity and efficiency into meeting rooms, but a great smart projector must also reduce the workload for IT teams and allow your employees greater independence from tech support. By reducing troubleshooting issues, smart projectors allow IT personnel to redirect efforts towards maintaining corporate security and other vital tasks, while your other teams hold productive meetings with no need to depend on IT support.

Having a Device Management System (DMS) in a smart projector is a must. DMS grants the IT team remote access and control over configuration settings on an individual projector or even a group of projectors. A good smart projector should also permit Over-The-Air (OTA) firmware updates to reduce maintenance time and effort for the IT team, and ensure long-lasting optimal performance. 

There is no perfect smart projector, only the right one for the locations where you’ll use it. And that of course depends on your meeting room and projection environment in terms of room size, lighting requirements, and number of people attending meetings, which also affects projector placement. When looking at potential smart projectors, it’s important for you to be aware of meeting room size and the features that the smart projector needs to have accordingly, especially with regard to projection brightness and the number of people that need to comfortably view content. A projector that’s not bright enough won’t deliver a clear image in well-illuminated areas, be they large meeting rooms or ad hoc huddle spaces.

For small meeting rooms or areas with less than ten attendees, a smart projector with brightness in the 3000-3500 lumen range is great for clear projection while saving energy. Since these meetings take place in small rooms, you need a smart projector with short throw, or the ability to display something like an 80” image from as little as a meter away. 

If you plan to use your smart projector in larger spaces, say conference rooms up to twenty people, then you should go with a higher-powered projector. Projection output in this case should be around 4000 lumens. That kind of brightness provides clearer visuals on larger screens even in relatively bright conditions. Because these rooms are bigger, the projector may need to be placed off-center relative to the screen or wall. That calls for vertical keystone correction, whereby the smart projector’s lens easily shifts and adjusts to provide a balance viewing experience. 

Deciding which smart projector to invest in is not an easy task. We hope that our article has nudged you in the right direction and has given some key insights regarding the best smart projector for your business meetings.