The best conference room webcam goes above and beyond to help a whole room participate in an online meeting. Using wide-angle or 360º lenses with smart cameras and microphones, these clever devices allow an entire table of people to be connected. Not only do they provide a broad view, but you can often also home in on different people and select specific voices, too.
We've applied our experience in testing and reviewing webcams to compile a list of the best models for conference use. We've looked for features such as automatic face detection and conference-grade mics, and speakers with noise cancellation.
Some cameras may use digital zoom and perspective correction to hone the footage, while, high-end PTZ cameras can track subjects using optical technology, which tends to have superior sharpness over other models. Some larger rooms will call for multiple speakers in order to get the best experience.
If you want the best overall experience in a conference camera, packed full of useful features for any size meeting room the Meeting Owl Pro is the best overall option. Read more below
A modern conference room can be a fairly lonely place – just you and the whiteboard. If that's typically you, then the Obsbot Tiny 4K is a fine choice. With its in-built mic and gesture-controlled subject tracking, has a lot in common with other devices on this list, but it's smaller and more portable. Read more below
Want a full view of a room, such as when you’re streaming a physical meeting around a conference table? Then the Jabra Panacast 20 is our recommendation. Read more below
The eMeeting Capsule’s ability to physically change itself means it can accommodate dual functionality, helping it justify the price tag. We’d like it more if it could operate from USB power rather than the mains, but it is nevertheless an impressive contender. Read more below
If you're looking for a portable and wire-free solution the Logitech ConferenceCam Connect is perfect to have cord-free meetings wherever you are. Read more below
This Pan/Tilt/Zoom (PTZ) camera uses Logitech’s RightSense technology to automatically frame every participant, so everyone has prime position when talking. Read more below
Why you can trust Digital Camera World
Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out how we test.
Best overall
(Image credit: Owl Labs)
1. Meeting Owl Pro
The best conference room webcam overall
Specifications
Resolution: 1080P
Frame Rate: 30fps
Audio: 8-mic + Triple speaker
Pan/Tilt/Zoom: Auto, Digital
Field of View: 360˚
Size: 273 x 111 x 111mm
Weight: 2.65lb/1.2kg
Reasons to buy
+
Award-winning design
+
Smart zoom
+
Whiteboard Owl accessory
Reasons to avoid
-
Requires subscription
The Meeting Owl is the best conference room webcam on the market today, and you don't just have to take our word for it. This webcam has picked up several awards for its brilliant design, capped with a 360˚ camera and equipped with the software to identify team members who are talking and give them centre stage.
Along the top (unless disabled in the options) is a thin strip showing a perspective-corrected strip of the whole-room view. Both images are considerably more flattering than those from a shorter camera, thanks to the device's 11-inch body height. And the sound is capably handled by the eight mics, which also help locate the subject, and boast a good pick-up range of 18ft (5.5m).
The ‘Pro’ is the latest version of the Meeting Owl, with a more powerful processor, better resolution, and louder speakers. The camera lock is controlled via a phone app, and want to share the discussion points, the optional Whiteboard Owl accessory adds a distortion-corrected view of the whiteboard. The view isn’t even blocked as the board is written on; the software applies partial transparency and even offers a step-by-step playback.
On the downside, the device requires an annual software subscription. But if you want the best conference room webcam there is, that's probably going to be a price worth paying.
A modern conference room can be a fairly lonely place – just you and the whiteboard. If that's typically you, then the Obsbot Tiny 4K is a fine choice. With its in-built mic and gesture-controlled subject tracking, has a lot in common with other devices on this list, but it's smaller and more portable. This webcam was conceived, at least in part, with vloggers in mind, so it can be set on a tripod, or clipped onto an open laptop.
We appreciate the dual microphone setup for the noise canceling, and the H.264 video stream with SVC via a USB Type-C cable. That means it’ll look good but not overly tax a modern laptop.
It’s also a nice touch that the lens can be pointed straight down for privacy. All in all, this is a great choice for making a presentation to other conference participants via Zoom, Skype, Teams, and the like.
Want a full view of a room, such as when you’re streaming a physical meeting around a conference table? Then the Jabra Panacast 20 is our recommendation.
Its AI-powered zooming and panning mean it automatically includes everyone on the call, without the physical camera needing to move and distracting you. Plus, while most videoconferencing services don't yet support 4K, the high resolution on offer here means the camera can zoom in on someone (lossless up to 6x) and still produce a Full HD image.
The camera also uses AI to cleverly adjust the lighting in dim and dark rooms. A triple-mic array means you get impressive sound quality, too. And overall this 4K webcam delivers some of the best video call quality we’ve ever seen. While this is an expensive purchase, the build quality is excellent, and you get USB-C connectivity too.
Lord of the Rings fans will find it strangely irresistible
Reasons to avoid
-
Needs mains power, so has dual cables
-
Resolution ‘only’ 1080P
-
Close-up video sections in 360˚ modes are soft
-
Indicator lights a touch confusing
The eMeeting Capsule’s ability to physically change itself means it can accommodate dual functionality, helping it justify the price tag. The physical remote means it is easy to command without installing quirky software, while the built-in active face tracking does a good job of sharing videos of multiple participants. We’d like it more if it could operate from USB power rather than the mains, but it is nevertheless an impressive contender.
Audio quality is indisputable, and comfortably in excess of the standard many experiences from laptop speakers and microphones during impromptu conferences. It’s nice to know an extra microphone can be added, but we don’t imagine it's needed often.
The video, too, is well presented (we like the white edges and curved corners in the conference modes), though it has to be said we’d have preferred more detail in faces from the 360˚ mode. Sadly physics seems not to be a friend when the camera is pointing up, though the software does a decent job and the AI kept the right people on camera with a latency of only a second or so.
With a built-in rechargeable battery and Bluetooth connectivity, Logitech Connect's wireless connectivity makes sense in a lot of environments where fixing a camera might not. For example, many offices have more meeting rooms than they have conferencing cameras. Or you might want to take one to conduct a site meeting and share it live with the main office.
All but the most intensive meetings should cope with the 3 hours of video or 15 hours of audio the battery will provide. (Don’t worry, though, Logitech still provides plugs). The remote control, when not serving as a magnetically attached lens cover, provides pan, tilt, and zoom, though there are no auto-tracking features. And other advanced features include NFC and the ability to make friends with Chromebooks as well as Macs and PCs.
Overall, this is an elegant device that will not disappoint in rooms with up to six people. However, if you appreciate Logitech’s tech but would like to save on wireless functionality, check the Logitech BCC950below).
The Rally camera is a Pan/Tilt/Zoom (PTZ) camera that uses Logitech’s RightSense technology to automatically frame every participant. This, they argue, is preferable to rapidly moving from one speaking participant to the next and lets you see non-verbal cues. The webcam boasts good-quality low-light and tone control technology which prioritizes faces; no bad thing when you’re under office lighting.
The camera is sold on its own or as part of the Logitech Rally Plus system, which includes a display hub with a pair of stereo speakers and a smaller table hub to which you can connect microphones.
These can be daisy-chained to accommodate 46 participants, balancing audio, so quieter voices are still audible at the conference. To make setup easy, the cables and devices come stickered, although you can use a much longer Cat6A cable to connect the hubs if you choose.
This all-in-one unit serves as a replacement for a traditional conference room setup involving a device, a camera, and a screen. Instead of everyone looking at a screen at one end of the meeting table and ignoring each other, the two tiltable monitors on either side of the main speaker keep everything central.
The 360˚ camera pokes out the top and, like Kandao's other devices, onboard AI picks out the speaker for the lion's share of the video feed. There is a tiny lag, but it does the job well. The screens also serve to control the device using Android 12, through which up-to-date versions of the latest conferencing apps for all major platforms are easily installed.
There are also enough ports to connect displays, video in, Ethernet or Wi-Fi, keyboard, and mouse, while all still remaining reasonably portable (unless you use a Kensington lock). Other than having slightly dimmer displays than I'd like, this system thoroughly impressed me in my full review. It's not for everyone, but if you need a semi-portable conference room setup – perhaps for temporary stationing with a remote team – this is impressive and can be set up without tech support (especially if you have used Android before).
This meeting camera has a built-in operating system based on Android, which can be very useful in simplifying the meeting process.
While the device itself is built to sit table-center in a medium-sized meeting room (up to 18ft/5.5m sound pick up), what’s really handy is that it can connect, via HDMI, directly to a wall-mounted display. Using the remote, you can use the display’s menu screen to choose your preferred conferencing app. If it works on Android, it works here.
You can keep your apps up-to-date via 802.11ac wi-fi or Ethernet and even attach peripherals via USB. The Meeting Pro will act as speaker and microphone, and sports echo and noise cancellation to keep your call clear.
It’s possible your colleagues might find the knowledge that there is 64Gb onboard recording space a little unsettling, but the ‘stop’ button is easy to find. The machine’s eight microphones help it do a good job of identifying the active speaker for the 1080p video output. The camera crunches through 8K worth of input from both cameras, which helps people look their best, with less distortion correction than many other conference room webcams.
A conference webcam is a specialized type of webcam designed for online meetings and video conferencing. That means unlike a typical laptop webcam, it prioritises features that make group communication clear and seamless, especially in larger spaces like conference rooms. These may include a wide field of view, motorized pan, tilt, and zoom capabilities, and built-in microphone arrays.
What makes a good conference webcam?
A good conference webcam should be compatible with popular video conferencing platforms, have high-resolution video quality (ideally 1080p or higher), a wide field of view (ideally (70-90 degrees), strong low-light performance, and advanced microphone technology for clear audio.
Does a conference webcam need 1080p or 4K?
There's no easy technical answer to what resolution you need in your webcam, because standards are constantly changing and improving. Right now, we'd say 720p is acceptable for most online meetings, but 1080p is becoming the standard. 4K is ideal for presentations or high-detail work, of course, but requires more bandwidth and processing power. So it might be a waste of money if you can't take advantage of the higher resolution.
1. Camera resolution vs Video resolution When you’re choosing the best conference room webcam, many seem to capture relatively high resolutions. This is because they have several cameras or unusual lenses with large image sensors, but the image is cropped to fit a standard video shape. So it's best to think of the output resolution: what people will actually see.
2. More microphones are good By comparing sound from multiple microphones, systems can get a cleaner sound from people in different places in the room. Even all-in-one devices can use an array of internal microphones to identify where to point their camera. Do note, that some conference webcams expect you to use a separate microphone and speaker unit.
3. Field of view Depending on the kind of meeting you're planning, you need to decide how wide a field of view you want your camera to have. Something with a 180-degree perspective, such as the Panacast (number 3 on our list), is similar to placing a laptop at the end of a table. A 360-degree device like the Meeting Owl or Coolpo AI, however, can sit in the middle of a huddle, and let the remote guest feel like a part of the action.
4. Weight doesn’t matter You probably shouldn't be looking for the lightest device you can find. Because actually, if you’re going to rest something in the middle of a conferencing table, a bit of heft can be pretty helpful, especially as a counterbalance to a lens, which is usually at the top. Plus, if you’ve got colleagues who smash the table in anger or celebration, then a few extra ounces will definitely help!
5. Height does matter It’s well worth considering where the device’s camera will be compared to the participant’s eye line. The lower the camera, the less flattering it can be, although ultimately you can always rest the device on a few books.
We test the best webcams by putting each model through its paces, carrying out conference sessions and assessing picture quality, paying close attention to color and clarity under varying lighting conditions, including natural and artificial light, bright and dim. We don't just look at specs like resolution and frame-rate but we pay attention to what video looks like in practice, and importantly what it sounds like too.
With over 20 years of expertise as a tech journalist, Adam brings a wealth of knowledge across a vast number of product categories, including timelapse cameras, home security cameras, NVR cameras, photography books, webcams, 3D printers and 3D scanners, borescopes, radar detectors… and, above all, drones.
Adam is our resident expert on all aspects of camera drones and drone photography, from buying guides on the best choices for aerial photographers of all ability levels to the latest rules and regulations on piloting drones.
