The new Poly Sync devices, which extend from the home office [Poly Sync 20] to small and mid-sized conference rooms [Poly Sync 60] feature both newer technology and price points that are competitive in the small device space.
The Poly Sync family
Today, at the virtualized Zoomtopia 2020 event, Poly is announcing their Poly Sync family, a new line of smart, USB and Bluetooth speakerphones which feature proprietary microphone technology designed to highlight the talker, rather than any background noise. The family features three models – the Poly Sync 20, Poly Sync 40 and Poly Sync 60 – which cover spaces from the home office to the small to medium sized conference room.
“The industry has been increasingly driven by the move to the cloud, with the rise of remote work, and the next trend will be the return to the office,” said Chris Thorson, Senior Director of Global Solutions Marketing at Poly. “We need to take advantage of these trends. Our latest and greatest, the Poly Sync family, will help remote workers and will help with the Return to Office as well.”
The Poly Sync family is designed to meet the need to work from anywhere, whether a remote work location at home or a conference room in the office. So portability is one priority. The other is sound quality, with Poly emphasizing the ability in the intelligent microphones in Poly Sync to follow voices in the room rather than background noises.
“Polycom had a foothold in the conference space already, but these are speaker line products,” Thorson said. “They are small devices you can stick in your bag. The audio is also much better than in traditional speakerphones. They reflect our audiophile heritage, with the design enabling a focus on the voices and not the background noise. The smart capability here is what allows the mics to react to the specifics of the audio. The design is also very sleek, with lightbars and controls on the side. The controls are extremely easy to operate.”
Poly Sync is a different type of product at a different price point from what the company had in the space before.
“After USB Bluetooth hit the market five years ago Plantronics had Calisto and Polycom had VoxBox,” Thorson indicated. “We then added Bluetooth and USB into our premium Trio line. However, we determined that to meet price points for small rooms and huddle rooms, we needed a whole new line.”
The Poly Sync 20 has three microphones and is designed for home offices. An upgraded version, the Poly Sync 20+, includes a BT600 dongle for seamless Bluetooth connectivity.
“The Poly Sync 20 has a smart use capacity, with a programmable button that lets you personalize functions,” Thorson said. “This includes activities like music pause/play or voice assistant.
“It also has a useful smartphone charger port built in,” he noted.
The Poly Sync 20, and the larger Poly Sync 40, both have a battery with 20 hours of life in a charge.
“The Poly Sync 40 is designed for both huddle rooms, and flexible rooms,” Thorson said. It has microphones with greater pickup range than the Sync 20, and an automatic Bluetooth unpairing option to quickly disconnect Bluetooth devices after a meeting.
“That can be useful if you go onto a Zoom call in another room, so that you aren’t still connected with this device,” Thorson noted.
Another capability that comes in with the Poly Sync 40 is the ability to wirelessly daisy chain two units to adapt and expand the reach within varied conference room sizes.
The Sync 60 has all the functionality of the two other models – except that it has no battery, and is plugged in for power. It has six microphones and two large built-in speakers, to support meetings in conference rooms.
The Sync 20 will be the first of the new line available, in November. It is among the first devices to receive Zoom’s Personal USB Speakerphone certification.
“We are putting our eggs in the Sync 20 basket to start with, with so many people working from home,” Thorson said. The Poly Sync 40 is scheduled to be available in January 2021, while the Poly Sync 60 will be available “in early 2021.”
“The other models are going through certification for Zoom, as well as for Microsoft Teams,” Thorson noted. “We are emphasizing the Zoom capabilities because it is being announced at a Zoom event, but it will also work for Teams down the road.”
