At the end of 2018, Yamaha Unified Communications announced it was shipping the Yamaha YVC-200 portable USB Bluetooth speakerphone for conferencing anytime, anywhere. This solution was designed for a very distinct envisaged scenario of hotel rooms, co-working spaces and huddle rooms, but it would prove its worth when the pandemic hit in 2020, and individual users started buying them to work from home. Using advanced technologies and all of Yamaha expertise in UC&C solutions, this portable conferencing device was designed to provide users with ample, clear sound no matter where they work.
The YVC-200 features Yamaha’s professional quality DSPs optimized for voice, with a 360 degrees and maximum radius of two meters (6.6 ft) microphone pick up range, and a rechargeable battery for up to 10-hour of use. Most people simply use it connected and powered by the computer USB port, but it also quickly pairs and connects to phones and tablets via NFC and Bluetooth.
The YVC-200 speakerphone also serves to demonstrate the power of sound processing technologies, including adaptive echo cancellation and Yamaha's own Human Voice Activity Detection, which focuses on speech rather than background noise. The unit intelligent microphone processing delivers full-duplex conversation without sound dropouts, even when multiple people are speaking at once.
The YVC-200's only limitation is the small loudspeaker, limited in volume, but effective for voice communications. And users love the mute button, which is supported directly by popular conference apps such as Skype, Slack, and Zoom. The design was launched as a perfect solution for business executives and entrepreneurs, and after 2020 it became a popular choice for anyone who needs conference-room quality audio without access to a conference room.
Pioneering Effort
Yamaha has been working on this concept and technologies for several years now. Adding to Yamaha's own research efforts in DSP and digital variable acoustics, in 2014 the company acquired Revolabs, the pioneer in wireless microphones and presentation technologies. Shortly after, the first member of the current YVC Speakerphone family, the YVC-1000, was introduced.
In earlier 2020, during ISE 2020, one of the very last trade-shows to take place that year, Yamaha Unified Communications reinforced its efforts in UC audio. On display for the first time was Yamaha's latest YVC-330 Portable USB & Bluetooth Conference Phone with SoundCap technology, the CS-700 Video Soundbar family, and an array of UCC solutions for a wide variety of meeting room environments. The company had already started to notice how meetings were starting to happen anywhere and not necessarily only in dedicated conference rooms.
Its new YVC-330 Portable USB & Bluetooth Conference Phone with SoundCap technology converts background noise prevalent in open workspaces into a signal that makes the meeting sound as good as being in a quiet conference room. Leveraging Far Field Noise Reduction, SoundCap zeros in and captures only the voices of speakers sitting around the meeting table. The conference phone also features an automatic mute function, which engages when participants are not speaking and enhances the performance of Yamaha's Human Voice Activity Detection technology, which instantly distinguishes human voices from other sounds.
Announced in 2019, Yamaha's YVC-330 speakerphone is certified for use with Zoom and the fact that it features a larger speaker surface than the YVC-200, makes for a superior call experience when used on its own. In addition, the SoundCap technology offers an auto-speaker volume adjustment, which regulates the volume to ambient noise levels and is suited for maintaining speech privacy. With the self-volume balancer function, remote conferences can be conducted seamlessly without being intrusive to those in the vicinity.
Already in 2021, Yamaha is showing the power of these software-agnostic designs with further integrations. As an example, Yamaha UC has added Mersive Technologies to its Strategic Partner Program. This new alliance brings Yamaha's best-in-class audio and Mersive's Bring Your Own Meeting room system to hybrid workspaces, allowing onsite and remote workers to work together seamlessly without the stress of today's common collaboration challenges. Yamaha's YVC series of conference phones fully integrate with Mersive's Solstice Pod to deliver a new meeting and learning solution that creates engagement for a wide variety of spaces and training rooms.
Paired with a Yamaha YVC-200, YVC-330, or YVC-1000 conference phone and the option of a USB camera, users have a complete room system for the new, more dynamic hybrid workplace. Solstice Conference bridges to remote participants using any of the major video conferencing services, including Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and Webex.
Dedicated Spaces
Another area, where Yamaha can also show superior capabilities is in larger speaker designs, integrated and dedicated to conference rooms. In its CS-700 and CS-700 SIP Video Soundbar family of products, Yamaha could already show the difference of having adaptive beamforming microphone arrays combined with four Yamaha speaker elements to provide the highest degree of audio intelligibility - and a wide-angle HD camera, which also helps.
When the time comes to create dedicated education, training and conference rooms, Yamaha Unified Communications is now offering its new ADECIA, a family of communication products designed to work together seamlessly to provide a complete and customizable audio solution for any enterprise or meeting space. The range comprises the brand-new multi-beamforming RM-CG ceiling microphone and RM-CR audio processor, as well as Yamaha's long-trusted PoE switches and VXL Series line array speakers. Together, the system supports multi-beam tracking technology, Human Voice Activity Detection, Noise Reduction algorithms, speaker tracking, adaptive acoustic echo cancellation, and much more. These automatic, smart audio technologies empower crystal-clear, stress-free remote communications.
And the ADECIA range enables organizations to overcome implementation, configuration, and room acoustic challenges by providing all the equipment required for a successful installation. Every component of the system, from the microphones to speakers as well as the required networking and communication equipment, automatically integrates thus reducing time, costs, and installation complexities.
The complete solution immediately detects all components of the system and configures them to be optimized for the room environment, accounting for the location of speakers and microphones, reverberation, and echo behavior. Setting up a room is done through the system's configurator in four effortless steps. With USB, Bluetooth, Dante, and analog connections, this flexible system can fit a variety of enterprise or meeting spaces.
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