KanDao Meeting Pro 360° Video Conference Room Camera - AI Tracking, Meeting Recording & USB Plug-Play, Portable 8 Mics Array Meeting Camera, Compatible with Zoom/Teams/Google Meet, 5 Smart Modes

Kandao has been making some extremely interesting products over the past couple of years across their product lines. Although they're well known for high end 3D and VR imaging equipment--like their downright amazing 8K VR180--the company has released several excellent products for the enterprise and consumer market as well. The Kandao QooCam EGO 3D camera is one of the most capable yet value priced 3D cams on the market. I'm a big fan of their QooCam which has to be the most underrated action cams on the planet. Not sure what the company has on deck for a sequel but don't be surprised if it puts them in company with GoPro, DJI and Insta360.It's now apparent that post-pandemic remote work, video conferencing, Zoom calls, etc. aren't going anywhere. As a result, the market for cams to facilitate this communication has become very competitive for both remote working consumers and businesses of every size. KanDao makes some very good conference cameras for larger groups of participants but this one is targeted toward smaller companies (or smaller conferences in larger companies) as well as remote working professionals. I'm part of the latter demographic.Simply put, the KanDao Meeting Pro is definitely in the mix for the best conference camera at this price point. It is a very sleek looking device that uses a similar form factor as a number of competitors. I was surprised at how small it is and how little it weighs (3.74 pounds). It's about the same height and a little larger in girth than a Pringles can. KanDao might not have designed it as a portable conference cam but once you get a protective case for it (more about that in a moment) it's very functional as such.The Meeting Pro can do everything you expect from this type of camera so I'll focus on what makes it unique. One of the coolest things is that it runs on Android 10. Assuming that KanDao keeps the Android base in the future (and they should) there's a lot of ways they can go with this. For now, it gives users the option of making it an independent conference system with connectivity supplied by built in 5Ghz wifi and a 10/100 Ethernet port. You can also connect it directly to source PC and use it with any desktop meeting app. It also works perfectly with all of the big meeting apps. I tried it with Google Meet, Skype and Zoom on computers running Windows, MacOS and Ubuntu.Another cool trick is the integration of screen mirroring. For example, you can open a web browser and using the Meeting Pro's IP address mirror screen content to the camera. The image quality is excellent and the audio is very impressive with eight embedded microphones. The multiple display modes can be switched with the buttons on the camera or the remote. The auto tracking is as good as any product I've tried at this price point (and I've tried dozens). The speaker is decent but definitely more suited to a smaller room. The in-box documentation is somewhat scant so I'd suggest downloading the full users guide from the support area of the KanDao website.My only gripe is a minor one--I wish they had included some sort of protective case suitable for travel. Like I said before, this isn't necessarily designed as a device for remote workers so I can't fault them too much for that. A storage bag and lens cover is included. I just bought a properly sized hard case with customizable foam inserts.KanDao is well known for the professional 3D and VR equipment that they make but they shouldn't be so 'under the radar' among consumers and smaller enterprise customers. They've released some great products for both markets and deserve to be more widely known in North America. They especially deserve to be better known for this product which is simply one of--if not THE--best conference camera available at the price point. Very highly recommended.

This all-in-one conference camera isn’t perfect, but it is wildly impressive. When I initially used it for a zoom meeting, I hadn’t realized the camera could operate independently until the last minute, so I used it as a camera/mic/speaker with Zoom. It handled this quite well with very little set up. All I needed to do was to change the active devices in Zoom and I was set.While on the chat, I was impressed with the quality of the camera. While we’ve had trouble hearing our dialed-in people in the past, the speaker made it very easy to communicate, and the person on the other end could usually even hear our most soft-spoken participant with the omni-directional mic. As for the camera, I am astounded at the effectiveness of the 360-degree video. The quality is solid. Sometimes it takes a moment to detect and focus on the right person, but I’m astonished that it can do it at all. I was pleasantly surprised how it could zoom in on the right person at just the right zoom., even though we were sitting around on soft chairs and not at a conference table.After I got off the test zoom call, I began setting up my camera for independent use in the future. The remote works well, but the overall system of input was tedious. I think the camera can connect to a keyboard, which I may try in the future. For inputting passcodes and setting things up I strongly recommend a better input device. For some reason, I couldn’t get the remote to let me navigate through the letters with the directional pad. Perhaps I overlooked something? Instead, the system let me switch modes to use the control as a pointer to select letters. I am not entirely sure how it works because the TV didn’t have a sensor, and the control was across the room from the Meeting Pro, but the pointer did work with a selection arrow on the screen. Although, it was a little tricky to manipulate.When setting up the speaker for independent use, it immediately wants you to set up a code, and I tried to temporarily ignore it. Don’t skip this step! The unit is apparently built on Android, but it needs the code because of the developer status. Without the code, Google throws up an error message that prevents downloads and logging in. I was briefly frustrated before I realized my mistake. Once I finally went through the tedious process of entering codes and passwords, and installing a few conferencing apps, everything seemed to operate smoothly. I do dread logging into meetings in the future if I don’t get a keyboard connected, but it won’t be that bad as long as I don’t get unexpectedly logged out of the app.An aside for the video software is that there are a few different settings it can operate with different detection modes. I didn’t explore how to adjust these on zoom, but they made sense in the device. It can be set to detect different numbers of people and settings, which is helpful for getting it to perform as well as possible in various meetings. It can also have one window locked to view the speaker. It seems to default to two zoomed in window and one 360-degree window.As for the overall hardware and setup, I am pleased with it. The device is quite large for a video/audio device, but it packs a lot of punch for that size. I set it up on my tripod to conference, and that was perfect. The only thing to watch out for with that type setup is the wiring to the outlet, and the computer if applicable.Overall, I consider this an incredible tool. I haven’t used other conferencing devices of this grade, so I can’t say how they might measure up. I can say this is a powerful upgrade for meetings where some people are present in-person and others are present online.