Forum Discussion
Polycom RealPresence Trio 8800
I'm looking at using the Polycom RealPresence Trio 8800 as a replacement for some of our smaller conference rooms. We are currently using a combined traditional conference phone with a Surface tablet with SfB connected for video and chat. It is messy and people cling to their dialtone devices.
The goal would be to eliminate the surface tablet and phone for the RealPresence Trio 8800.
Is anyone using these who would be willing to share their experience?
The goal would be to eliminate the surface tablet and phone for the RealPresence Trio 8800.
Is anyone using these who would be willing to share their experience?
We have just had our trio 8800 installed and nobody can get to grips with using it
When it works it is pretty good but it is so complicated, e.g. the wrap up button closes the call but inadvertently hit sign out and you log the whole system out and have ages to get back in
Try calling out to a different conference call and you'll get an incorrect pin entered - even when you can dial in to that same conference with your mobile no problem
The TV, monitor, phone itself all look very good but that's about it
It won't let me attach a file, but if you create a text file from the text below with a .cfg extension, you can load it into the phone via the web ui of the phone to hide the signout:
<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes"?>
<!-- Hiding the Sign In and Sign Out option from the home screen but keeping it in the menu-->
<!-- Settings => Features => Microsoft Lync => Sign out)-->
<!-- The User cannot sign in through the web. Only possibility is through the phone GUI -->
<changes>
<test feature.enhancedFeatureKeys.enabled="1" softkey.feature.simplifiedSignIn="0" />
</changes>You can hide the sign out button from the home screen so people have to go into settings to sign out. We learned that the hard way, but know all our phones are configured that way.
My experience with this Polycom product has been a complete disappointment. It's advertised as being a plug-and-play device. In my experience, it's anything but that. Configuration is a nightmare and tech support doesn't exist. I've reached out to Polycom support four times about this product and all I get back in response is "so sorry you are having problems" and then they email a bunch of support people, none of which ever call me. One sent me the same manual that I can get online. Am I supposed to be writing code in order to make this unit work? If so, that was never mentioned in the plug-and-play promo. I even told Polycom support that I would pay for someone to come onsite and set up this device. I have received no response. I'm serious. Zero. Zip. None at all.
Here's my list of problems:
1. It keep dropping the connection to Microsoft cloud phone system. I have to go into the phone's setup and tell it to reconnect. It doesn't seem to try reconnecting on its own.
2. When displaying a shared computer screen the display will suddenly freeze for 10 to 15 seconds. This happens four of five times in a 20 minute meeting. Completely unacceptable. I finally purchased a HDMI cable that goes directly from the computer to the HDTV because of all the Visual+ issues.
3. Scheduling a Skype meeting is crazy difficult and sometimes Skype cannot "find" our Polycom device. And why share the screen if it's going to freeze on you?
4. We are currently subscribing to five different Microsoft cloud services in an effort to support this product at a cost of $500.00 a year. That wasn't mentioned in Polycom's promos.
I'll try to remain positive so I'll say that when it is working as a conference phone the sound quality is good.
I honestly don't know how Polycom continues to sell this product other than excellent marketing. After a year of no satisfaction, spending hours of my time in research, with no tech support from Polycom, and lots of frustration we are getting rid of it and going with another product.
We had a similar screen freezing issue with our Visual+ which turned out to be a Firewall issue (Sonicwall), a call with support found some ports were being used that were not listed by Polycom/MS, once they were whitelisted for the visual+ all was well.
My trio experience has been a little disappointing as well although some of that can be the way we have our conference rooms setup, they sound great though.
- I'm curious which ports were not listed as well.
I've had good success with the Trio without Visual+. I don't believe Visual+ is a device that's certified by Microsoft for use with SfB.
https://partnersolutions.skypeforbusiness.com/solutionscatalog/metting-peripherals
We have had good luck with both the Trio 8800 and 8500 in a SfB 365 environment. Trio's are associated with the room calendar so when you book a meeting in a conf room the Trio is part of the SfB meeting by default. Simple. One touch join on the Polycom when the user wants to start the meeting.
Updates to SfB and the Trio now have the screen sharing using VBSS instead of RDP and the performance and reliability is very good.
Drew
I'm really impressed with the quality. Remember to update the software :-)
I works well in rooms where I told customers that they could not get a decent sound due to acoutics.
I create accounts dedicated to the rooms they are used in, and have them signed in all the time.
They are then invited as an attendee.
- Would like some more suggestions on this topic. Looking to move to a 3rd party hosted Skype PBX to replace our internal VoIP system, we run O365/Exchange E3 currently and use UM in the cloud for voicemail. So that all works, Just want a phone system to integrate and has proven AA and Call queues etc which Cloud doesn't really do well with/preview
Anyway, one vendor suggested the Real Presence for 3 of our 4 conference rooms that are larger. We have professional A/V setups in these rooms, meaning a dedicated computer as a source, people can bring the SF3/4 that most employees have and plug into the HDMI on the conf table inputs, touch control/professional A/V controllers to handle the video etc.
Then, we typically just use a regular conference phone to call into the Skype Conf service.
So I'm not sure how an SRS or Real Trio, besides the implementation of having it tied to a conference room calendar, which we already use that method as a sheduling tool for users already, and integrating the phone/tie it to those accounts, what features either of these devices would provide for use having Skype features/functions built into them that our Professional A/V, controllers multiple inputs and touch screen controls for these devices will provide?
Sorry, kind of long post there. But not sure what SRS/Real presence as it is being offered to us, will do that isn't already handled and proven, with a user group that knows how to use the current systems and methods would play into this type of conference room setup.
Seems like the Real presence with remote mics would just serve as an audio device using Skype as the PSTN still, just some simpler conference room integration/meeting kickoff/integration. But otherwise, our SF3/4s and dedicated computer as a source as well, or Apple TV for Mac users to stream video to the monitors, what they will do for us?
Thanks I have installed a trio in place of a polycom ip7000. Users report sound is amazing. It is in a very challenging conference room (large, glass, high ceilings), but remote users are very impressed with the improved sound quality. It has been worth it for the improved sound quality.
Setting up was a bit of a mystery. System basically keeps rebooting a bunch but that is because it knows it needs to upgrade firmware. I thought is was broken at first, but once it finished a few reboots it was all good. Logging into withSfB was no problem.
Visual+ I want to like it. Very easy to join and do screen share even if you are not on a call but...
frame rate is 5fps. For static stuff it is fine (slides) but fast scrolling it is a challenge and sometimes does not scroll to the part of the spreadsheet until I click on a cell in the new location. Sharing a video on a website or in a slide, forget it. Also as mentioned by others it only supports one stream, video stream OR screen sharing but not both at the same time. I wish Visual+ worked better.
Andrew,
make sure you are in latest firmware, picture in picture was added recentely
I'm happy to report the RealPresence Trio is working now. I'll run it through more tests before deploying to our executives offices but this looks like it will easily replace both the table top phone and PC running S4B in those spaces.
The issue we were having was caused due to a misconfigured internal DNS for our lync online SIP urls. Once we corrected those, everything worked as designed.
Hi James,
What specific change did you make to the DNS around this SIP registration.
My units eventually subscribe, but seem to take time as well to Online Skype4B.
Thanks
Luke
- If you are deploying them as shared devices linked to your Exchange calendars, you may want to consider removing the logout button from the home screen. You can do that by adding the following to your configuration file: feature.lync.hideSignInSignOut="1"
David Phillips thanks for that tip, I did update the config and removed the logout button. I can see how this can become an issue. Jimmy
I finally broke down and purchased one of these and after spending a few hours trying to get it updated and will say that this is not an easy connection to S4B... it should simply login with credentials and it doesn't. I sense an RMA in the next 24 hours if it won't connect. It just isn't worth my time trying to make something work at this price point.
- Smartdock or Trio ? We installed 5 SmartDocks a couple of weeks ago and the user feedback has been great. We had no great issues getting the Surface Pro's built and the accounts configured, but you do need to do it all correctly, like the SurfaceHub.
- I'm interested to hear more about your experience with SmartDock. Also, doesn't SmartDock Surface Pro hardware come pre-loaded with software?
I have been holding out for the Polycom and Crestron offerings we saw at Ignite. I have always considered Logitech as a more consumer focused product.
- My view on the Trio has changed dramatically now that I've taken Visual+ out of the equation. I read recently that Visual+ isn't Skype certified, and with the imminent release of the new Skype Room Systems, the decision is farily easy for me. In fact, I'm hoping to position it as our conference phone of choice for rooms that don't require any kind of visual interaction.
- Didn't know until now, on the solution catalog only the Trio is listed.
http://partnersolutions.skypeforbusiness.com/solutionscatalog/cloud-ip-phones/polycom-realpresence-trio
- Kressmark
Microsoft
Hi,
I agree with David - "I really want to like the Trio", but when we tried it some 8 months ago, during my previous employment it was far from complete. We were testing with software version 5.4.1.17597 so maybe some issues are corrected in never revisions? As a phone when it comes to voice and the design and price tag, the Trio is very good, but the issues we ran into were:
1. Picture-in-picture. While running a video meeting we got the active speaker displayed fullscreen, but we could not see our own picture being broadcasted. We heard this should be fixed in a future release - anyone knows?
2. Slow swapping of active speaker. Since the Trio is only displaying the active speaker we felt it took too long time for the video feed to change as a new speaker became "active". In some cases we had to talk for around 20-25 seconds before the video feed changed. It does not seem to be a setting in Lync or the Trio to make this switching more responsive / faster. (Since regular desktop clients have the gallery view this is not an issue for them.)
3. Video resolution. Trio to trio calls were great running in 1080p, but as soon as a client using VGA only the Trio started to send VGA only to all connected users. So as soon as one desktop user were in a meeting the experience was not nice.
4. Documentation. We had issues with the addressbook search, loading of root certificates and the login process which is really the Lync 2010 way of doing things. These features were not very well documented. We could not get the DHCP option 43 override to work which had been nice in our Cisco DHCP environment, but we heard others managed to make it work.
5. We could not get the Trio to play nice with a hosted Acano system, video was one-way only, and we could not resolve it after contacting both Acano and Polycom support.
With this said I still think the Trio can be a good device for some scenarios, but make sure you review and test it technically.
/mk
- Regarding the Trio 8800 and Acano.
Acano have fixed the issue with video just being presented on the Trio device and not the other way around.
This is fixed in version 2.0 and later.
/M
Logitech has a "Smart Dock" that uses a Surface Pro I want to check out an compare with. Because we've already purchased a couple Logitech video conference units, this option may work better as we can keep the existing hardware in place. I'll be looking forward to testing the SmartDock to see how it delivers on usability for our users. Logitech SmartDock
hi,
we are testing those phones right now, setup with just the phone, and collaboration kit. (conf phone + camera+ Visual+ puck?)
anyway, audio quality is excellent. (comapred to our old polycom cx3000 which were fine to me,) i think Trio's support all s4b audio codecs..
- very easy to use; 1 click conf join from calendar option is there.
- phone interface itself is very responsive.
- i didnt have issues with long sign in.
if your going to get the Visual+ Camera
- video quality is very good.
- desktop sharing - were looking into this right now, but so far , this just doesnt work very well. low frames, it looks like it has issues with devices sharing desktop with resolution higher than 1080p.
- it only displays 1 feed to the monitor, so if you start a video call, and a desktop sharing session, then you only see desktop, no video.
I liked it so far, worth of investiment. But few things i can re-call now is, CAC on-prem needs to be modified if our bandwidth session set to very minimum, and other issue or caveat at this time is Content Sharing, you need to be in a Skype to share the content not in room content sharing.
- I really want to like the Trio, but my experience with it has been hit and miss. Sound is definitely fantastic. I like that it's very configurable (although it needs better documentation, there are things like removing the sign-off button that weren't in the docs). I didn't get the long sign in times, but if you're going to use it in a conference room, and if your organizational policy allows it, why not leave it signed in as the conference room account? Then you wouldn't have that issue. Getting the Trio and Visual+ pairing every time on the same network, even the same switch, without breaking was challenging. It doesn't consume uploaded PowerPoint presentations. Video tiling isn't the same experience as a Skype client.
Any good document sources for initial configuration?
