Hardware

Review: Poly RealPresence 500 Video Conferencing Kit Offers Flexible Collaboration

The Poly RealPresence 500 brings healthcare wherever it’s most needed.

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John Breeden II is an award-winning reviewer and public speaker with 20 years of experience covering technology.

The COVID-19 pandemic spurred many healthcare organizations across the U.S. to adopt virtual care strategies where previously none existed. Almost overnight, most healthcare facilities had to become experts in remote doctor visits.

But many rural hospitals and doctor’s offices were already moving in that direction to provide better treatment options for patients in areas where traveling to a central facility can be challenging.

In both cases, healthcare facilities have found pivotal success with the Poly RealPresence Group 500 videoconferencing kit. Designed to provide a professional videoconferencing experience in a small space with minimal technical skills required, the Group 500 kit seems almost tailor-made for healthcare environments.

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Quality Visual and Audio Videoconferencing for Healthcare

The RealPresence system is an all-in-one device that is both small and portable. It could fit comfortably on a clinician’s desk or on the table in a meeting room. It can even support dual screens if facilities want to dedicate a well-equipped conference room to the device.

In healthcare, accuracy is critical, so the RealPresence 500 has a camera that supports wide-angle UXGA (1920x1200 resolution) or fully HD (1920x1080) feeds.

In addition, the device is optimized to work in environments where the available bandwidth is not very fast or possibly unreliable. Reducing the camera to VGA resolution (640x480) lowered the bandwidth considerably while still maintaining reasonably high quality. The only caveat is the video will likely be played in a smaller window on the patient’s screen.

Sound is also captured well using a RealPresence microphone. The 500 offers an array capable of supporting up to four microphones, which would make it a good choice for large conference rooms where people are sitting far from the unit.

Poly RealPresence 500 Video Conferencing Kit

Simple and Secure Videoconferencing Setup

A lot of thought went into the interface for the device so that clinicians don’t have to be IT experts to initiate or maintain a call. It’s not quite one-touch recording, but it’s close, and the included remote control is far less complicated to use than for some modern TVs.

The RealPresence 500 also includes significant security features, which are helpful for maintaining HIPAA compliance and patient confidentiality. Most important, video feeds can be protected with AES 256-bit encryption, which is the current topline standard used by the military and is generally considered to be resistant to hacking, given current technology.

Administrators can also set up password-protected access to management functions and device configuration menus.

Providing timely medical care to patients regardless of their location or ability to travel to a healthcare facility is a critical need made even more urgent by the pandemic. The Poly RealPresence Group 500 videoconferencing kit is an affordable and easy-to-use device that can help to bridge that gap.

Treating Patients Over Slower, Less Reliable Broadband

Almost any videoconferencing tool can perform well if connected to a fast broadband backbone. The Poly RealPresence Group 500 videoconferencing kit is no exception, but it also does a good job in rural areas or places where the bandwidth might not be very fast or reliable.

Top-tier broadband is not a given in rural areas. Even if a healthcare system does have good broadband, it’s likely that many of its remote patients may not have that access.

The Poly device takes this into consideration. In addition to supporting lower-resolution (and thus less network-intensive) recording interfaces, such as VGA, the device has a set of tools collectively called the Polycom Constant Clarity Technology suite that automatically adjusts the feed during low-bandwidth connections. This helps ensure that critical information always gets through.

The Constant Clarity suite includes lost-packet recovery technology and audio error concealment. In testing these features, I found they were able to eliminate some of the common errors that occur over low-bandwidth connections, such as voices that sound like robots or participants who drop out while talking. It’s not perfect, but for the most part, the features make less stable connections usable by maximizing the available bandwidth as much as possible. Compared with trying to hold a conference in a low-bandwidth environment without this technology, the difference is notable.

There are other things the unit does to improve the feed, including automatic gain control, noise suppression and even active lip synchronization. Those features would help in a high-bandwidth environment, but they also make an impact over less reliable connections.

Though better bandwidth is always preferred, the Poly RealPresence Group 500 videoconferencing kit does a good job of optimizing slower or less reliable connections so that they are at least usable, if not fully functionable, for a healthcare environment. That makes this device a good choice that is ready to tackle almost any broadband connection, regardless of type, speed or reliability.

SPECIFICATIONS

Supported Recording Modes: HD, HDTV, SXGA, VGA, WSXGA, WUXGA+ and XGA
Maximum Resolution: 1920x1200
Audio Input: Wired directional microphone
Modem Max Throughput: 6MBps
Data Link: Wired Ethernet, Fast Ethernet or Gigabit Ethernet
Dimensions: 11.3x4.8x1.2 inches
Weight: 2.45 pounds