Microsoft Teams Room on Android – Update 1 for CY22

Last Updated on February 11, 2022 by GrahamWalsh

Here are the details of the forthcoming updates to Microsoft Teams Rooms on Android taken from the Microsoft 365 Message Centre.

Teams Rooms on Android is getting another exciting update that will introduce meeting stage improvements, reactions, HDMI ingest, wallpapers, and many other features. As usual, this update will be made available through the Teams Admin Center for all Teams Rooms on Android devices.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 86719, 86730 and 66357.

When will this happen?

This update will begin rolling out in mid-February and should be completed by mid-March.

• Some customers may get an update sooner than others due to a planned gradual rollout.
• Devices of some manufacturers will receive the update sooner than others.

How this will affect your organization

This update will include the following features:

• Meeting stage improvements. We have drastically improved the meeting stage to not only show more videos but also to allow for additional flexibility of what is displayed on the Teams Rooms front-of-room displays. There are a few significant improvements:
  • Dual screen meeting stage: With the new and improved stage, meeting participants span both screens when content is not available.
  • Multi-spotlight: Meeting rooms can now spotlight multiple participants on the meeting stage.
  • Docked meeting controls: If you are using Teams Rooms without a console, you will appreciate more streamlined controls that are docked at the bottom of the screen.
  • New reactions: In addition to raising your hand, you will be able to send Like, Applause, Heart, Laugh, and Surprised reactions.

• HDMI ingest and sharing. You can view content in the room or share it into the meeting by plugging in an HDMI cable. This is an update to Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 66357, which began rolling out in September 2021 and will complete by mid-March 2022.
• Control camera/mic for attendees. Presenters and organizers will be able to control camera and microphone access for all individual attendees.
• Wallpapers. We are introducing five new wallpapers to customize your Teams Rooms on Android devices. These wallpapers will apply to the front-of-room displays in single and dual screen configurations.
• Webinar support. Webinar presenters can now join and contribute from the Teams Room on Android. More information is here.
• Teams Admin Settings. To provide a more cohesive experience, we are combining all IT admin settings into one group under Device settings for ease of room configuration.
  • These settings are available only on shared room accounts and require a password to access.

• Room capacity notifications. A warning message will appear on the front-of-room display when the room is over capacity.
  • This functionality will initially be available only on a select set of devices – EPOS EXPAND Vision 3T, Yealink MeetingBar A20, Yealink MeetingBar A30.

• Room check-in notifications. When a user checks-in on the Teams panel device and the previous meeting is running over, a notification will appear on the Teams Rooms front-of-room display to inform the in-room participants their meeting is over, and that people are waiting for that space.
  • This feature only works when Teams Room on Android is deployed in a room with a Teams panel device and the devices are paired.

What you need to do to prepare

You might want to notify your users about this new capability and update your training and documentation accordingly.

Really looking forward to all these updates and will publish a full overview of all the features once General Availability is released.

Also published on Medium.