Coming up I’m joined by Dave Kearney,
Director of Surface Engineering team, to review the first device in the
Surface Hub 2 family, the Surface Hub 2S.
It's an all-in-one collaboration device that’s built for teamwork delivering a digital whiteboard,
meetings platform, and a Windows 10 computing experience in one device.
And we’ll look at the built-in features, from the 4K camera, to the 4K+ screen and
audio design that make participating in an online meeting feel less remote.
Keep watching to see how the modularity of the new Surface Hub 2S makes it more serviceable
and updateable.
So Dave, welcome to the show
Thanks for having me
So, this device is a brand new Surface Hub 2S, and I’ve got to say, the first thing
that really struck me when I saw it was the slim design, and the impressive screen real
estate, I can barely even see these bezels.
Yeah, it has incredibly thin 15mm bezels and optimized ink and touch experience.
The key engineering challenge for us was achieving both on the same device.
and this speaks to one of our most important engineering principles for Surface, which
is to get the hardware out of the way and just
allow you to stay in your flow.
You’ll notice that with this new design, there’s a clear affinity with the rest of
the Surface family.
For example, we are using this signature 3x2 aspect ratio, and that extra screen real estate
is fantastic for creation and editing not just viewing.
And a big priority for us during development was to make sure the Surface Hub 2 was mobile
and untethered from the traditional conference room, and I think you’ll agree that we’ve
accomplished that goal.
Right, and I see the Hub is on a mobile stand here, can you explain more about mobility
as really part of the design?
Sure so, you mentioned the form factor, we’ve agonized over every ounce going into this
device cutting out weight its actually 40% lighter
than its predecessor and weighs just under 30 kg.
So you can mount it easily to the wall, but where it really “gets its
legs” is when it’s paired with this beautiful Steelcase Roam
Mobile Stand.
There's a few things I want call out about this stand because it’s the result of a
fantastic partnership with Steelcase to perfect this experience
And let me just show you what I mean.
it's super easy to move the device, very fluid, it’s designed so that it can be moved effortlessly.
So that seemed pretty easy.
I can imagine how easy it would be to move from space to space.
Right.
Another thing we wanted to focus on was approachability.
It’s super important to have a design so that you can get up close to the device and
there are no no obstacles to trip you up and get in the way of collaboration.
It’s great.
And I really like that it’s lightweight, robust, it’s also mobile at the same time.
How are we dealing with power?
Right, I’m glad you asked.
We’ve thought about that too!
AC power outlets aren’t always located where your team needs to do their work so, we partnered
with APC by Schneider Electric to build this lithium-ion APC
Charge Mobile Battery for Surface Hub 2.
And it sits here in the tray of the mobile stand giving us this beautiful integrated
design.
And it not only helps you power the device while you move it,
but it keeps the device powered while you are
using it.
It’s a game changer.
So, you can use the device while you're on the move.
But why don’t we move on to the user experience, and some of the things that make this device
unique
So I’ll start with when you enter the workplace.
Like the first Surface Hub we want to make sure that you can just walk up to the device
and use it.
You’ll notice that we no longer have the large pillars with sensors, from the first
Surface Hub, we are now using doppler presence sensors that’s invisibly into our slim bezel
And we’ve put the three most common user scenarios right here on the
welcome screen Call, Whiteboard, and Connect
And Surface Hub 2S, like the rest of the Surface Hub family,
is a really great platform for meetings.
That’s right.
For sure, we have both Microsoft Teams, Skype for Business so you have options for the Cloud
or on-prem, and to allow them to coexist while
you migrate
We’ve worked really hard to make Surface Hub 2s meetings more immersive if you are
in the room, and to help you to feel less remote when you are not
And It all starts with the screen, we have designed a 50”,
4K plus PixelSense display
We have an amazing anti-glare surface on the screen that we worked really hard over the
course of a year, testing more than 100 samples to find the magic formula to deliver great
performance in terms of glare reduction, image clarity and fabulous pen and touch feel.
Ok, In this case the Surface Hub, myself and others have been invited to a meeting
You can see the meeting invite is actually visible here from the lock screen
I can go ahead with one touch, and join the Microsoft Teams meeting
And you can see we’ve got a number participants already in the meeting
And we’ll just go ahead and full screen their video feeds
Say hey team, how’s it going?
You’re all looking great.
As you can see, you can have up to 4 active incoming video feeds, and benefitting from
the 4k screen, there is no compromise on the resolution
each individual rendered at up to full HD.
And they could all be using different device types
Ok.
So, what else have we done to optimize the experience for in-person and remote participants?
So, we make meetings feel less remote in a number of ways.
First the camera at the top of the screen
This little camera hides a ton of innovation and technology
Clearly capturing a group of people huddled around the device is critical so the camera
is 4k and delivers a 90-degree
Horizontal Field of View
We also know that natural colors and uniform lighting are important to a cognitively comfortable
meeting experience so we've built a solution that deals with both, a unique challenge given
that field of view and high resolution.
Beyond the camera though, we have also worked a lot on audio clarity, we want remote collaboration
to be as effortless as being in the same room, even in noisy environments.
To make this possible, sound is delivered using a pair of
2-way front facing, super wideband stereo speakers and a discrete bass module designed
to faithfully reproduce the human voice.
And we have an integrated 8-microphone full band array with Beamforming
focuses on people speaking in front of the device and not sounds from the sides or back
And to minimize annoying background noise, we then process the signal using a new capability
called “Smart Voice Automatic Gain Control” to improve voice clarity.
Ok now, what if I want to collaborate in the meeting?
With, for example, the whiteboard?
I can see where this 3x2 aspect ratio will really helpful
For sure, lets go ahead and jump into the whiteboard to see what that looks like
So this is the golden ratio for our devices, and you do really appreciate the extra display
height giving you a bigger window into the Microsoft Whiteboard.
So, I’m going to sign into whiteboard
And because I am part of the meeting scheduled on the Surface Hub device, I can select my
name and sign in.
You can see I’m right at the top of the list.
I can hit continue.
I’ve got my phone here with the Microsoft Authenticator App
I’ll go ahead and unlock the device.
This is going to go ahead and send me a notification on my device that I just go ahead and match
the number that’s on the screen.
So I can hit 77 here.
Approve.
And that’s done, I can put down my phone.
So now I’m in, and the beauty of the Whiteboard is that unlike an analog one, it gives you
a persistent digital canvas
If I hit the back button, I can also see my past whiteboards and you
can see now this is my list of things I’ve worked on recently and if I tap on one, it’s
going to go ahead and immediately rehydrate the content
And in this case, this is the Surface Hub 2S website that me and the team have been
brainstorming on
Now we can add people to this whiteboard, we can go ahead and tap this, and write their
names in here
We can also see that we’ve got several people already in
You can see Addie and Megan are actively contributing ideas and content right now
I’m going to go ahead and grab the pen here and show you what the ink experience is like
and just draw and arrow there because actually what we need to do is finalize what the hero
image will be for our website
So let me tell you a little bit more about our next generation ink and touch experience
we’ve actually removed layers between the LCD and the cover glass and that reduces the
gap, reduces parallax even more than the previous generation Surface Hub
that means that as I write with the pen it feels like ink is flowing directly from its
tip
Is there anything new with the pen?
Yes, we’ve improved the usability of the pen, we’ve added a lasso button on the side
here, and this makes it easier when I want to select items, for example to move them
around on the whiteboard
Let me show you how this works
I’m going to go ahead and press the button and select this particular object here because
what me and the team want to do is actually change out the hero image for our website
So I can just grab this, and I can move it over here out of the way
So the new pen is powered by a AAA battery and there are actually 8 magnetic mount points
around the perimeter to place the Pen on
And something really neat too is if you have colleagues still using analog whiteboards
you can bring in those whiteboards and interact with just as if they were created on the Surface
Hub
I’m actually working with colleagues here who are still using these analog whiteboards
and look we’ve pasted in a picture of one taken from a mobile phone
And It’s very easy for me to now move this up into the spot where where we previously
had the other hero image, and I can just kind of adjust it a little bit
Edit the size, slide it over here, and we’ll use a new feature in the Microsoft whiteboard
called Ink Grab accessed by tapping the little magic wand icon,
And what you are going to see happen, is this picture of an analog whiteboard is actually
transitioned transformed into digital ink.
And it just happen right there
And now I can edit this, I can erase this little label here at the top, because we don’t
need that anymore
I can further revise the placement of this image, make it a little bit larger
You can see that that blends in just as if it were originally created on the Surface
Hub
Also, to celebrate this moment that we finished our design for the whiteboard, I can come
over her to the side and using my famously bad left handed whiteboard penmanship, I can
say great job.
And you can see that this is hard to read but another fantastic feature is called Ink
Beautification
accessed again by that little magic wand icon it will transition that into actually legible
font
OK so why don’t we switch gears and talk about an area that’s super important for
our tech enthusiast audience watching, the ports.
Now this is very is important if I want to connect devices to the Surface Hub 2S or maybe
project display out.
Sure, so around the display we have 4 USB-C ports for connecting devices, such as removable
media or other peripherals.
These ports are also specifically designed for the Surface Hub 2 camera and I’ll get
back to that in a minute.
Then on back of the device we have a comprehensive array of ports.
We have USB A, we have C, gigabit ethernet, HDMI input and mini Display
port output.
The USB-C port on the bottom is special, supports DisplayPort,
so you can attach many mobile devices, in fact Surface devices with USB-C can project
with touchback using that single USB-C cable
Of course, we have built-in Wifi and Bluetooth, as well as Miracast with wireless touchback
support And, it’s running a Quad-core 8th Generation
Intel Core processor with 128GB internal SSD
So now if you are in IT, how do you configure and manage a Surface Hub 2S
I’m glad you asked
We wanted to make sure that Surface Hub 2S is very easy for our customers and partners
who have already invested in the first Surface Hub to deploy and manage so it is managed
in the exact same way as Surface Hub 1
on the show.
How can people learn more?
Yeah Thanks, Jeremy.
We’re excited about Surface Hub 2.
And you can learn more at the link shown.
Also, if you want to dive deeper into set-up, management,
and tips and tricks, we’ve got that too.
Good stuff And of course, subscribe and keep watching Microsoft Mechanics for the latest
tech updates.
That’s all the time we have for this show.
Thanks for watching, we’ll see you next time.