Snom conferencing. Snom C520-WiMi and C52-SP review

Good day to all and welcome to the traditional review of our products!

We believe that it is no secret to anyone how important high-quality and good communication is nowadays. Recent circumstances force many to hold meetings from the workplace, but sooner or later the pandemic will be defeated and meetings in the office will return to the usual collective format. When all conferences are in the same meeting room and are usually seated at a large table, the speakerphone capabilities of an ordinary telephone are usually not enough. Here, inevitably, you start thinking about a conference phone. And we have something to offer you in this case. Today the hero of our review will be a conference phone Snom C520-WiMias well as a compatible speakerphone Snom C52-SP…

These devices have serious functionality and today we will first look at their constituent parts and appearance, having talked more about the functions and use cases in the next article.

Conference call building concept

What does each of you imagine when you hear about a conference phone or conference call? First of all, a microphone system of many devices appears in the head, which is cumbersome and has nothing to do with IP telephony, or a single device with a microphone and speaker, located on the table and providing coverage of most of the meeting room. But most doesn’t always mean all. It is good when all the participants sit around the table, do not move around the meeting room in any way, do not demonstrate a presentation, and use the board to draw graphs and diagrams. But, as soon as we move away from the ideal concept of just people at the table and find ourselves in a real meeting, we understand that just a device standing in the center of the table is not enough for high-quality communication. What to do? To give the communication device, and hence the conference participants, flexibility in solving their problems.

Completion and appearance

Flexibility is in the very concept of our conference phone. In addition to the device itself, the delivery set contains two wireless microphones with their own batteries, which are usually part of the device. However, if necessary, the meeting participant can use them outside the main table of the conference room, moving around the room. Wireless communication is provided according to the DECT standard, which allows microphones to be located at a distance of up to 25 meters from the main device. Separately from the conference phone, the microphones remain operational for 5 o’clock in talk mode and up to 70 hours In standby. All microphones of the device are synchronized with each other and have their own mechanisms of noise and echo cancellation, so you don’t have to worry about the quality of communication when using wireless microphones.

As you can see in the above image, the conference phone, in addition to itself and the microphones, also includes a PoE injector, which means that you do not have to think about installing a PoE switch or finding a compatible injector, everything you need for the device to work is already there included. Naturally, all cables for connecting the device are also supplied with it.

Let’s go back to wireless microphones. Each of them has its own rechargeable battery, which is not connected to the microphone at delivery. Battery installation is very simple, after its completion, the microphone is registered via DECT on C520-WiMi and ready to go.

The microphones are installed on the phone in the corresponding recesses, the shape of which and the location of the battery in the microphone ensure reliable fixation of the microphone in its place.

A conference phone will provide you and your colleagues with good audibility, but there are situations when its acoustic coverage area may not be enough. In this case, you can connect a DECT speakerphone to it C52-SP… We have mentioned this device more than once before, this speakerphone can also be used with many Snom desktop devices, connecting via DECT USB adapter A230… When used in conjunction with a conference phone, it creates a single speaker system, picking up sound through the built-in microphones and playing it back through the built-in speaker. If such a system is not enough, you can connect to С520-WiMi two more speakerphones, completely covering the very large space of a really large conference room.

Since the entire system interacts using the DECT protocol, the network congestion and the fullness of Wi-Fi channels with data will not affect the quality of your connection. In addition, DECT provides indoor signal transmission at a distance of up to 50 meters, which allows devices to be located at a considerable distance from each other.

Equipment C52-SP somewhat more modest than that of a conference phone, only a battery and a power supply are supplied with this device. In general, this is enough for a full-fledged work with the C520-WiMi, but to connect to a desktop phone, you will also need a DECT adapter A230…

Built-in battery makes this device mobile. You can move it to any place convenient for you, which is very convenient. The charge of the built-in battery is enough to operate the device up to 12 hours of talk time and 70 hours of standby time.

Since the DECT speakerphone has very specific functionality, the number of keys on it is small, there are only 3 of them. The far left allows you to mute the device microphone, while the middle and right are used to control the call and audio playback volume.

С520-WiMi it also has a full-fledged dialer, navigation keys, a separate hold key and sub-screen keys. The device’s screen is small, graphic, but it is enough to control the phone’s functionality.

In addition to the display, LED indicators located above the display, on either side of the speaker, are also used to indicate the status of the device. They are responsible for displaying the status of the bluetooth connection, which can be organized to add additional participants to the conference using a call via a mobile line or an application installed on a smartphone or your computer.

Outcome

Snom С520-WiMi – a flexible and convenient tool for solving work tasks. It will provide good quality communication regardless of the working situation, and using it in conjunction with Snom C52-SP you will stop paying attention to the size of the meeting room, knowing that the interlocutor will hear you anyway.