The clunkily-named Zoom for Home – DTEN ME is a 27in touchscreen display with three wide angle cameras, eight microphones and, of course, Zoom built in. The device costs $599 and is only available in the US. Head of Zoom Rooms Jeff Smith told TechCrunch: “Zoom for Home is an initiative from Zoom that allows any Zoom user to deploy a personal collaboration device for their video meetings, phone calls, interactive whiteboard annotation — all the good stuff that you want to do on Zoom, you can do with a dedicated purpose-built device.” The idea is that someone can get the DTEN ME out the box and be ready to have video calls in minutes. Your Zoom account is paired to the device via a pairing code on a website that you access via a browser on your phone or computer. From there, the interface lets you easily select whether you want to video call, voice call, join a meeting or use Zoom’s collaborative Whiteboard features. There’s also a screen sharing function that can beam your laptop or phone to Zoom calls. It seems like an expensive product given most people will already have laptops with webcams and Zoom installed, but it’s interesting to see a software company like Zoom experiment with hardware. It’s like an enterprise version of the Facebook Portal. Henry is Tech Advisor’s Phones Editor, ensuring he and the team covers and reviews every smartphone worth knowing about for readers and viewers all over the world. He spends a lot of time moving between different handsets and shouting at WhatsApp to support multiple devices at once.
