How do I lay out a hybrid meeting room?

A hybrid meeting room is laid out so remote participants get equal presence with people in the room: camera at seated eye level, faces lit from the front, microphones distributed for even coverage, and the display visible to everyone seated. The starting point is to treat the remote participant as another seat at the table rather than a window into the room.

Camera position. Mount the camera just below the front-of-room display, between 1.0 and 1.2 metres from the floor, so it sits roughly at seated eye level. Cameras mounted above a 75 inch display look down on the room and remote participants see the tops of heads. For rooms longer than 6 metres, specify a wide-angle VC bar (Logitech Rally Bar, Poly Studio X70, Yealink MeetingBar A40) or a separate PTZ camera so back-row participants stay in frame.

Table shape and seating. Boardroom rectangles work for up to 14 people, after which an oval or modified-rectangle shape gives the camera a better angle on the head and second seats. Avoid placing seats directly behind people in single-row layouts: every face the camera can see is one less obscured remote participant.

Lighting. Faces should be lit from the front at roughly 300 to 500 lux. The most common avoidable mistake is unmanaged window backlight: a window directly behind the seating wrecks every camera image. Specify motorised blinds, frosted film or relocated seating so the camera never frames a participant against bright glass.

Microphone coverage. A single front-of-room bar covers up to about 4.5 metres. Beyond that, ceiling array microphones (Sennheiser TCC2, Shure MXA920) or table boundary mics give even pickup so back-row contributions land at the same level as front-row.

Content visibility. Remote participants should see shared content at the same legibility as in-room participants. A second display dedicated to content, or a dual-stream VC platform that pushes content to remote screens at full resolution, prevents the "remote can't read the slide" failure mode.

A meeting room AV partner will site-survey natural light, ceiling height and seating sight-lines before fixing the layout. Layout decisions made on paper during consultation and design are far cheaper than rework on site.

Quick reference: camera at eye level, no window backlight, ceiling mics above 4.5m room depth, second display for content.