Logitech Rally PlusPRODUCT REVIEW
Logitech Rally Plus
Most video bars or all-in-one systems are designed to capture a small or medium conference room. Built-in cameras can struggle to pick up participants in the back of the room, and audio proves even more difficult to effectively capture – and that’s to say nothing of irregular floor plans. Logitech’s Rally Plus is able to solve for these larger, non-standard rooms, with a dedicated PTZ camera, two speaker bars, and two Rally Mic Pods. With discrete components and expandability up to seven Rally Mic Pods, the Rally Plus provides flexibility in terms of placement to create an immersive video conferencing experience in large rooms. Ultimately, the Rally Plus is a step in the direction of a custom system, without (all of) the associated complexity or costs.
Key Specifications
- Certifications Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet
- Appliance Mode Yes, with Roommate Product
- USB Mode Yes
- Built-in Video PTZ camera Supported resolutions: 4K, 1440p, 1080p, 900p, 720p, and SD at 30fps. 1080p and 720p at 60fps. Zoom: 15x optical Total room coverage
- Built-in Microphones None – 2 Rally Mic Pods Included
- Built-in Speakers 2
- Displays supported 2
Price range
At $2,599, the Logitech Rally Plus is actually less than many all-in-one video bars – but it requires a Logitech RoomMate ($999) or other compute device. “Yealink has some packages, as does Poly, that are similar in price,” account executive Dan Shadow said, although he acknowledged it’s not as easy to compare the Rally Plus as it is to compare competing video bars. Assuming the cost of the Roommate, the Rally Plus is in the same ballpark as the Poly Studio X52 bundle ($4,299.95 with a 10” touch screen), Yealink A30 ($2999.00 with an 8” touch screen), or oddly enough a Rally Bar ($3999.00).
Build Quality
Profound Technologies co-founder and technical lead Brett Fisher spoke highly of the build quality of the Rally Plus. “I absolutely love the build quality of the Logitech products,” he said. “They take aesthetics seriously in all of their products. They approach them functionally and aesthetically to make them attractive. … The speakers and microphones have a nice contour and nice grilles on the front.” Briana Landers, an accountant with Profound, compared the look and feel of the Rally Plus to Apple products: “It’s updated, fresh – new-looking,” she said. Dan stressed the importance of the compute device to the system, but added “the (Rally Plus peripherals) have always had good audio quality, good video quality … they all function well compared to what I’ve seen from others.”
Installation experience
Brett was impressed with the flexibility and number of options for installing the Rally Plus components. ”You can surface mount (the Rally Mic Pods), you can recess them into the table with a grommet mount, and you can mount them on the ceiling,” Brett said. “The amount of flexibility is impressive, and it’s supported in this kit with additional accessories.” More broadly, Brett was impressed with the expandability of the Rally family of products. “Whether it’s a Swytch, whether it’s a Tap, or coming soon a Sight, you can keep expanding on it,” he said “The flexibility of the Logitech ecosystem with the Rally Plus allows you to customize the room. “The only complaint would be in USB architecture, sometimes requiring USB devices to be unplugged and re-plugged,” he said. “The good news is, after that, the whole device is back up and running like it never happened.”
Industry standards
Like its siblings in Logitech’s Rally family, the Rally Plus does not support high definition copyright protection (HDCP) via HDMI, which is standard practice, and necessary to allow meeting content to be recorded. Its HDMI outputs support all common resolutions up to 4K, so the Rally Bar’s video capabilities shouldn’t cause any compatibility issues. Logitech has relied on USB 3.0 for connecting peripherals, choosing a widely-adopted standard with plenty of bandwidth for audio and video. At the same time, USB 3.0 comes with distance limitations, and peripherals like the Rally Mic Pods use similar connectors but are not compatible with other systems. The Display Hub and Table Hub use Ethernet and RJ45 connectors over distances up to 164ft – infrastructure that many organizations already have in place between their display and conference table. Logitech has certified the Rally Plus bundle with Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and Google Meet.
User interface
Brianna praised the picture quality as contributing to a positive user experience. “The picture from (the Rally Camera) is good,” she said, “crisp and clean.” “The remote that ships with the base kit is completely functional, and very obvious and easy to use,” Brett said. Our team reviewed it with the Tap, though, which highlights the ability to expand a Rally Plus system. “The UI is Zoom, showcased on the Tap,” Dan said. “Using the Tap was a lot simpler than I thought it would be,” Brianna added. “Just clicking ‘Join Meeting’ and putting in our code was quick, easy, and user-friendly.”
Standout features
“I would say the quality of the camera and video is very nice,” Brianna said. “I like that you don’t have to adjust the zoom and focus, as well. It’s automated; it’s quick.” “The speakers have good audio. They’re definitely a step up from the Rally Bar. It’s nice you can do up to seven microphones, on the table or in the ceiling,” Dan said, adding that camera quality is where Logitech really distinguished itself. “Logitech, out of the box, almost has a studio feeling to their camera quality, which I really dig,” Brett said. “That makes people generally more comfortable on camera, because it’s softer.” Brett also cited the option to add products as a standout feature.
Reasons to buy
“It’s compatible with Zoom and Teams, the most popular platforms we see,” Dan said. “People know Logitech from their personal use, so there’s brand loyalty, and the pricing is competitive.” ”I think it would be great if you have multiple offices where you have groups of people that you need to conference with at one time, that way everybody’s still together collaborating, and not individuals on each laptop,” Brianna said. “This product fits your 8- to 15-person room easily, because of the microphones, dual speakers, and high quality camera with the partial optical zoom,” Brett said. “You can adapt (the Rally Plus to) a medium-to-large room very easily, with multiple microphones if you need them, multiple cameras if you need them.”
Reasons to reconsider
”If they don’t have a lot of meetings, is it necessary?” Brianna asked. “It’s awesome to have a high-tech conference room, but if you’re not having conferences or don’t require this kind of AV, it’s a high cost.” “Because (the Rally Plus has) small form factor speakers, they do not have richness to them,” Brett said. “For conferencing they perform perfectly, but in a presentation it’s going to be average.” “It comes down to what kind of room they have. If they have a smaller room, they could do one of the bars, and they wouldn’t need (the Rally Plus),” Dan said. “If they’re price driven, then this might not fit their budget. They might say, ‘is there something similar at a lower cost?’ “Is it the right product for the room, their use cases, and does it fit their budget? If it doesn’t check those boxes, it might not be right for them,” Dan said.
Conclusion
From handsome looks to strong AV performance and tons of flexibility, our Profound Technologies panel was impressed with the Rally Plus package. The speaker framing and tracking on the Rally Plus made it easy to use and provided good video quality. Discrete components included in the Rally Plus bundle allowed for several different installation and placement options to best suit the client’s room and needs. On the other hand, smaller spaces (or tighter budgets) may not benefit from having multiple speakers, microphones, and a standalone PTZ camera – those rooms could be served by a video bar. Check out our panel’s overall ratings for the Rally Plus bundle: