Yes, the company is Neat, and the product is the Neat Bar Pro. It's difficult to talk about Neat without using the superlative in its own name, but after spending time with the Neat Bar for a couple of weeks you will find, like I did, you can't help yourself. Yes, Neat is neat!

On the surface, Neat is a piece of video conferencing hardware; it includes a camera, microphone, speakers, Ethernet and Wi-Fi connectivity, and HDMI output to display on your TV, or TVs. This in itself is no big deal; we've all seen conferencing equipment, and we all have been into boardrooms or training rooms with cameras, microphones, and speakers of varying quality.

Yet, if we think a bit more, how many of those experiences were actually any good? I've had my share of atrocious boardrooms.

There was one company with a sound system and projector cabled through the wall, driven by an amplifier and PC sitting in a cupboard. Invariably somebody would bump the amplifier and administrative staff would have to pore through the supplier's documentation to remember how to set the inputs and outputs again. Then a visitor would come and want to use their own laptop to present instead of copying it to the cupboard PC via USB or email; lengthy cables would be draped around the room.

Or, there was the company with an Android device that sat on the desk and ran Microsoft Teams for Android. It wouldn't support any other video conferencing app, and in fact, its support for Teams was now outdated too. If it was invited to a Teams meeting it could display the participants on the connected TV, and play audio - but its camera no longer worked. Instead, staff using the room would all dial in with their laptops and use its camera. Well, somebody would. Others didn't. So if you were a remote participant you would see the side of somebody's head as they spoke while looking at the TV instead of their laptop, and you would only hear (barely) other people in the room when they spoke.

Or, there are a great many companies with a typical webcam sitting atop the TV. And while those in the room could easily see the remote participants on the TV, if you were one of these remote users it was a frustrating experience. I've been there, staring at my screen trying to figure out which of the ant-sized people at the table was speaking. Believe me, it's no fun.

COVID accelerated remote and hybrid working, and now it is here to stay. Yet, one thing COVID taught us was how easy it is for the mind to wander when on yet video call. While having the flexibility to work from any location and still be able to collaborate in real-time is awesome, I think we can acknowledge most meetings we find ourselves in prove challenging to keep fully engaged in.

Here's where Neat comes in; the company is relatively new. Chances are you've never heard of them. It was founded in Oslo early in 2019 by a team of technical and creative experts who each brought decades of experience from the world's most recognised video communication brands. Neat regional director APAC Niko Walraven explained to iTWire that the group set out to create devices that address any space in today's modern workplace, and that allow people to meet, create, and collaborate whenever, wherever, and however they want.

As such, Neat has focused on innovating with high-quality and aesthetic hardware, augmented with high-quality software that is as important as the hardware. Maybe even more important.

One company using Neat's products to great success is the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS), a non-profit organisation that supports the expertise and lifelong learning of more than 8,300 surgeons and 1,300 specialised trainees. They've enjoyed having an intuitively simple collaboration system that helps promote educational ideals, while being easy to take from space to space.

Hardware-wise, the Neat Bar Pro brings a whopping 50-megapixel camera, 16x digital zoom, three full-range speakers, a 16-mic beamforming array with four tracking microphones, a 70-degree to 113-degree horizontal field of view, triple screen support, and a wide range of sensors - depth, wakeup, light, orientation temperature, humidity, and air quality. There is ultrasonic support for wireless content sharing, echo cancellation, noise suppression, automatic gain control, dereverberation, and hardware-accelerated audio processing.

What that means is incredible picture quality and audio, both for those in the board room and those connecting remotely.

You drive the Neat Bar Pro via an included 8" HD touchscreen device, the Neat Pad. This tablet-like unit sits on your board table or wall and supports Power over Ethernet, as well as Wi-Fi. You can control all settings of the Neat Bar Pro from here, and this is also how you set it up in the first place.

However, the hardware is only a part of the story. It's the software that truly makes the difference, transforming the Neat Bar Pro from being "merely" a high-quality piece of video conferencing hardware to an exceptional platform that brings people together, makes collaboration happen, and most certainly keeps your people engaged.

Software smarts combine with the camera image and beamforming microphones to pinpoint all the individual people in the scene, focus on them, and also follow them around as they speak.

The Neat Bar Pro will literally split up its image to present multiple split-screen views, each containing different people in the room, enlarging them and tracking in full close-up. This happens automatically, no matter where they are positioned. If someone new comes into the screen, the split screen expands to accommodate; if someone leaves, that split screen closes.

Here's an example from Neat's marketing:

And here's a real-life example from my living room.

Okay, the video is a bit silly, and I'm not particularly photogenic, but you see the camera splitting the image to show people in the room, including introducing new people and following movement.

What you don't see is the size of the room; forget an experience like this:

Picture: bad video conferencing setup - but one we've all seen too many times

With Neat, that goes away. No more ant people around a table. No more confusion over who is speaking. No more disengagement, no more boring meetings. Say goodbye to uncertainty; the Neat Bar Pro makes your hybrid meetings as truly effective as face-to-face. It is your key to ensuring all parties are engaged, and with that, you've increased clarity and your chances for successful action outcomes.

Neat's platform easily adapts to your room, and to one, two, or three screens. You might use it in a small room like this:

or perhaps a larger one like this:

Either way, Neat will perform all its magic as easily and effortlessly, allowing everybody to put their best face forward.

If you're setting up a conferencing solution, you need to check out Neat. And if you've got a conferencing solution, but your engagement is low, you need to check out Neat. In fact, just go and take a look; after all, it's really neat.