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The Best BYOM Experience Should Feel Familiar
BYOM has become a central part of corporate and higher-education AV strategy. The next challenge is giving users the familiar, single-cable experience they expect while preserving the professional capabilities integrators need behind the scenes.
Bring Your Own Meeting, or BYOM, is now a standard expectation in many conference rooms and learning spaces. Users want to walk into a room with their own laptop, launch the meeting platform of their choice, and immediately access the room’s displays, cameras, microphones, speakers, and collaboration tools.
At the same time, modern rooms are becoming more technically sophisticated. The real opportunity for the AV industry is to keep that sophistication available to the integrator without placing it in front of the user.
Q: BYOM has been discussed in the AV industry for several years. What is changing now?
Kevin Peterman | Senior Product Manager, Liberty AV: The basic BYOM concept is not new. What is changing is the expectation surrounding it.
Initially, BYOM often meant giving users a way to connect a laptop to a display and perhaps access a USB camera or speakerphone. Today, users may want two displays, multiple cameras, interactive devices, high-quality room audio, USB 3 peripherals, network connectivity, and the freedom to use Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Webex, or another platform without reconfiguring the room.
At their desks, many of these users already connect one USB-C cable and gain access to two monitors, Ethernet, power, audio, a keyboard, a mouse, and a camera. When they enter a conference room or classroom and encounter five cables, several buttons, or a separate set of instructions, the room feels like a step backward.
That is the new standard for BYOM: not simply whether the connection works, but whether it feels as natural as the user’s everyday workspace.
Q: Why is simplicity still difficult to achieve in professional meeting and learning spaces?
KP: Because the system must be simple for the user without being simplistic for the integrator.
Users should not have to understand signal formats, USB bandwidth, display-routing logic, EDID, audio networking, or control protocols. They should connect a cable and begin working.
The integrator still has to manage all of those elements. A larger room may require video and USB to travel much farther than ordinary cables allow. The system may need to support multiple displays, switch between a room computer and guest laptops, route audio onto a Dante network, communicate with the room-control system, and provide reliable access to several USB peripherals.
The goal is not to remove professional AV infrastructure. It is to make that infrastructure invisible to the person using the room.
Q: Why has the docking-station experience become an important model for BYOM?
KP: Because it is already familiar. Most people do not want to learn how the AV system works. They want to recognize the connection and understand what will happen when they use it.
USB-C docking has created a clear mental model: connect one cable, power the laptop, extend the desktop, and access the attached peripherals. That experience should not disappear when someone moves from a workstation into a collaboration space.
The engineering behind the connection may include switching, extension, signal management, control, and networked audio, but the user should still experience one cable and a predictable result.
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Q: What role does multi-screen support play in that experience?
KP: Multi-screen support is increasingly important because people are accustomed to working across more than one display.
In a video meeting, one display may show remote participants while the second shows shared content. In a classroom, an instructor may want presentation material on one screen and the conferencing interface, notes, or another application on the second. The key is true desktop extension rather than simply displaying the same image twice.
Liberty’s TU-DS42U3-H3 is one example of how that experience can be delivered. It supports a single-cable, dual-display workflow using DisplayPort Multi-Stream Transport and DisplayLink. A connected laptop can recognize the two room displays in much the same way it recognizes two monitors attached to a desktop dock.
The broader principle is more important than any one product: a BYOM system should preserve the user’s normal computing workflow instead of forcing a reduced version of it.
“Room size should change the infrastructure behind the connection, not the way users interact with it.”
— Kevin Peterman, Senior Product Manager, Liberty AV
Q: How can the docking-station experience scale to a larger conference room or lecture space?
KP: This is where AV extension becomes critical. USB and USB-C were designed for relatively short connections. That works when a dock is next to the laptop, but it becomes more challenging when cameras, displays, interactive devices, and audio equipment are installed at the opposite end of a room.
The system must separate the simplicity of the connection from the physical distance of the installation. The TU-DS42U3-H3 can operate as a local switcher in a smaller space or be paired with matching receivers when video and USB devices must be extended to the display side of a larger room. It provides dual HDMI and HDBaseT 3.0 outputs, along with a dedicated USB 3 link for high-bandwidth USB extension and switching.
A dual-display design can use the TU-DS42U3-RX where USB 3 connectivity is needed for cameras, interactive displays, or other peripherals. The TeamUp+ Series HDBaseT3 Receiver (TU-DS42-RX) can serve the second display when the design requires video, Ethernet, audio de-embedding, and RS-232 without the additional USB 3 connection.
For the user, it is still one USB-C cable. For the integrator, it is a structured AV system that can be designed around the room.
Q: Why does USB 3 matter in modern BYOM systems?
KP: USB 2 remains appropriate for many devices, but modern collaboration environments increasingly include peripherals that require more bandwidth. Higher-resolution cameras, intelligent tracking cameras, capture devices, interactive displays, and multi-device configurations can all benefit from USB 3.
The system may also need to switch those peripherals reliably between a guest laptop and a permanently installed room computer. USB should therefore be treated as part of the room’s signal architecture, not as an accessory added after the video design is complete.
The Liberty TeamUp+ Series Dual Screen USB3 Collaboration Extender/Switcher (TU-DS42U3-H3) includes automatic USB host switching and four local USB 3 device ports. When paired with the TeamUp+ Series HDBaseT3 & USB3 Receiver (TU-DS42U3-RX), the receiver adds two USB-A and one USB-C peripheral connection at the remote location. This allows devices to be placed where they make sense while maintaining the single-cable experience at the table or lectern.
The larger lesson is to look beyond connector type. A USB-C connector alone does not guarantee the required video capability, data rate, charging level, or cable performance. The entire USB path must be designed and validated as a system.
Q: Where does Dante audio fit into a simplified BYOM design?
KP: Dante is a good example of a capability that can be valuable to the integrator while remaining completely invisible to the user.
The person connecting a laptop should not have to think about how room audio is distributed. The integrator may need to route that audio to DSPs, amplifiers, assistive-listening systems, recording systems, overflow spaces, or other networked endpoints.
The TU-DS42U3-H3 includes a dedicated Dante connection supporting Dante audio output & input, along with balanced analog audio output. That allows the same presentation or conferencing source to be incorporated into a traditional analog audio system or a networked audio architecture.
The design principle is straightforward: advanced AV functionality should strengthen the system without adding another step for the user.
Q: If the goal is simplicity, why are APIs and third-party control still important?
KP: Because simplicity must be designed into the room.
Automatic switching may be sufficient for some spaces. Other rooms need a touch panel, keypad, occupancy-based automation, or integration with a broader control platform. Higher-education institutions may want consistent behavior across hundreds of rooms, while corporate AV teams may need systems that can be monitored and supported centrally.
The TU-DS42U3-H3 supports automatic switching, front-panel control, a web interface, RS-232, GPIO, and an open API. That flexibility allows one room to operate automatically while another uses a programmed control interface. The user experience can remain familiar even when the operating requirements are different.
Q: Are the priorities different between corporate and higher-education environments?
KP: The workflows are different, but the core expectation is similar.
In a corporate setting, the focus may be on quickly starting a meeting, accessing the room camera and microphone, displaying content on two screens, and supporting the conferencing application the guest prefers.
In higher education, the same room may need to alternate between an installed teaching computer, an instructor’s laptop, a document camera, an interactive display, lecture capture, and a remote-learning platform. The institution may also require open control, networked audio, standardized configurations, and the ability to support many spaces with a relatively small AV team.
In both cases, the room should make the preferred workflow easy without preventing the integrator from supporting more advanced requirements.
Q: What should integrators and technology managers prioritize when evaluating BYOM solutions?
KP: Start with the experience and work backward into the technology.
Ask what the user should be able to accomplish with one connection. Does the system support a true extended desktop across two displays? Does it provide sufficient charging? Can it access every required camera, microphone, speakerphone, interactive display, and USB device? Can those signals reach the required distances? Can the solution switch cleanly between guest and installed computers?
Then examine the integration requirements. Does the system support the organization’s audio architecture? Can it be controlled through an open API? Can its status be monitored? Is there enough USB bandwidth for today’s peripherals and the next generation of devices?
Finally, evaluate the complete signal chain, including laptops, USB-C cables, switching, extension, receivers, displays, USB peripherals, network configuration, firmware, and control programming. The presence of a USB-C port does not make a room simple. Simplicity comes from designing all of those components to behave as one predictable system.
Liberty delivers a comprehensive ecosystem of innovative infrastructure systems across professional audio/video, security and surveillance, cable and connectivity, wireless and distributed antenna systems, and cable pathways, racks and accessories. Our integrated, easy-to-manage solutions empower integrators and building owners with the tools and expert services needed to create adaptable, high-performance systems that connect, protect, communicate, and collaborate. To learn more, visit Libertyonline.com.
