Huddly L1 is a new smart camera for large and medium rooms designed to make meetings more inclusive and productive in a hybrid workspace. It features a custom lens module and an AI engine that dynamically frames the image so people can focus on the meeting instead. Whenever people leave or enter the room, the camera smoothly adapts the frame to make sure everyone is seen. Since it features no moving parts and no need for remote control, it's user- friendly, silent and unobtrusive.

Video calls in large meeting rooms are especially challenging where it can be difficult to see everyone clearly and to pick up facial expressions and gestures. This makes it harder to communicate and work together than it needs to be. The pandemic highlighted the need for a high-quality user experience for video collaboration, and until now the solutions to this scenario have been insufficient. We wanted to fix that.

Huddly L1's design fits into any meeting room while minimizing visual clutter. It represents a natural evolution of our design language: informal and functional. The mount further enhances this philosophy with its modular and playful design. It works both for wall, shelf and – with an accessory – TV as well. Huddly L1's packaging is designed to minimize the environmental impact. It is easy to recycle and can be shipped flat-packed, which reduces emissions.

Demonstration of the experience:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd0PJh_Lx_w

Huddly L1 is an inherently collaborative product. The camera draws on expertise in the fields of user experience, industrial design, software development, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. The flat hierarchy of the organization made it easy to work together, both in-person and online. All of us worked together to realize our shared vision.

Regarding industrial design, one of the challenges was how to pass on the identity of Huddly GO & IQ, but in a larger format that felt like a natural evolution of the brand. They have a personality and informal vibe to them that makes the technology more approachable, and we wanted to keep that. It also had strict mechanical constraints when it came to size, proportion, and thermal design which needed to be carefully considered. Huddly L1's industrial design honors function through simplicity and abstraction. Meeting rooms tend to be full of visual clutter and we wanted to keep that to a minimum. Instead of styling the surfaces, we explored how much ornamentation we could remove while still keeping the identity. We took inspiration from our graphic identity and focused on the underlying design instead; structure, composition, and proportions. We made the lens cap and the LED larger to give it a more figurative aesthetic that's further emphasized by the expressive and playful movement of the foot. The holes on the top are necessary for heat dissipation, but we turned it into a graphic pattern instead.

When it comes to UX, we worked carefully to be as inclusive as possible. This means using representative data sets when we train our AI. For example, making sure that all skin tones are represented when tuning our Portrait Lighting and Genius Framing features. We also did extensive user testing of the unboxing and setup process that had an important impact on the final result.

We believe in the power of a flexible workplace. Work-life balance is one of the most important aspects of a healthy work environment as it helps reduce stress and burnout. People are happier and more productive when they can make their own decisions about how and where they want to work. Huddly L1 is a tool made for the hybrid workplace. It is built to support remote work so that people who work from home, either permanently or a few times a week, are able to connect and collaborate with their colleagues at the office.

Our modular packaging system is specifically designed to be environmental friendly. By keeping the amount of materials to a bare minimum and using corrugated cardboard as primary material, we made sure that the packaging is easy to recycle.

It can also be flat packed which makes the transport more efficient with less emissions.

L1 supports people in working from home, meaning that it offers people a possibility to commute less and thereby reducing their daily emissions.
We hope that an improved video meeting experience can reduce the need for business travel and encourage both companies and individuals to make it easy to reduce their carbon footprint.

The camera also uses power over ethernet (instead of USB), which allows a more flexible installation since it supports longer cables.

Demonstration of the experience:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd0PJh_Lx_w