Swiss computer peripheral maker Logitech International S.A. today announced that businesses will soon be able to control their own meeting rooms through the power of their own voices using contactless collaboration with Zoom Video Communications Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.’s Alexa for Business.

According to Logitech, the recent COVID-19 pandemic has led many businesses to begin adopting hybrid work environments that connect both remote and local workers in order to reduce the number of employees in proximity at once.

Logitech Solutions for Zoom Rooms, a video meeting collaboration peripheral toolset, can now use Alexa for Business to make better use of meeting spaces with voice commands. Alexa for Business operates in the Amazon Web Services cloud and uses it to understand human speech and execute commands in real-time.

As a result, employees can activate and control hardware with simple spoken commands such as, “Alexa, start the meeting.” This enables people to work together and reduce contact with each other and equipment, thus helping to lower the potential spread of COVID-19 at a workplace for essential employees. As a result, at-work teams can stay safer while still remaining in contact with remote teams.

“It’s important we continue to evolve the meeting room experience to better support the needs of our changing workplace,” said Scott Wharton, general manager and vice president of video collaboration at Logitech. “People are very comfortable with voice commands at home thanks to the adoption of Amazon Alexa, it’s now becoming a natural experience in the business world.”

Zoom Rooms is a software-based room system that provides an integrated video and audio collaboration experience for meetings. Combined with Logitech’s peripherals, Zoom provides the underlying infrastructure necessary to bring multiple people together remotely using microphones, cameras and screens.

The Logitech solution allows users to connect the Logitech Tap controller, Mini PC and a Zoom Certified Logitech Rally or MeetUp conference camera together to a voice-activated system while also simplifying setup and deployment by Information Technology teams.

Administrators need only download the Alexa for Business client to the Mini PC and within a few clicks will have Alex available to take voice commands for the meeting room. Once installed, the microphone on any Logitech meeting device can detect and execute Alexa commands.

The system operates just like any other interaction with Alexa using an activation word, usually Alexa’s own name. Once the wake word is detected by the microphone, a tone will play and a blue bar will display on the monitor, allowing users to know that Alexa is engaged in receiving or sending audio.

“We’re now able to be more efficient around utilization of meeting rooms, allowing businesses to deploy videoconferencing even faster by simply using voice to reserve rooms, schedule meetings, and start or end video calls,” Wharton said.

As more and more employees work full-time from home, or mostly out of the office, businesses find themselves in need of solutions that will bring them together.

“With the global health crisis, we need to provide our users with touchless experiences that help them limit physical contact with frequently used devices,” said Jeff Smith, head of Zoom Rooms at Zoom. “The future of work must be a safe future. We look forward to working with Logitech and AWS to continuously innovate and build a secure and collaborative experience for our customers.”

Image: Zoom