Facial Recognition feature Camera/Codec setup

[mendee1]

I have seen way back in the past (2014) that the SpeakerTrack 60 had facial recognition features. I am not able to find anything that would enable this or any new/current documentation that says its possible. Does anyone know any about this? i have SX80 with speakertrack and I also have Codec Pro with Speaker Track but i could switch them to a quad cam if that supports it (?). My units are registered to CUCM on prem but I could switch to cloud webex registration. I saw in the webex admin that there is a feature for the recognition but I dont know if it would transfer to the telepresence devices. Thanks in advanced.

[H@ppyLarry]

If I recall correctly, the SpeakerTrack uses audio and acoustics to identify the direction of a speaker, as opposed to 'facial recognition' which is more commonplace today. It's been a few years since I was in front of one, but I recall the unit had small 'pin holes' located around the periphery of the front casing and that these were an array of built in microphones. As I recall these are used with the software feature within the codec, so that when a person speaks, the microphones pick up the audio and use the differences between direct and reflected sound to locate the general direction of the speaker. Not perfect, but not bad - the accuracy seemed to vary depending on the size and acoustics of the room, but with 2 cameras it stood a fair shot at getting it right. If I recall at the time the product hit the market, facial recognition (as we know it) was probably fairly new and would have required a separate dedicated CPU/software/$$$$. Also found and attached installation guide which has some details. Hope this helps.

[Patrick McCarthy]

The Speaker Track 60 system does indeed have facial recognition capability. It uses a combination of audio triangulation and facial recognition to determine what is the next camera shot it will use to display to the far end while in a call. This prevents it from zooming in on a ringing phone sitting on a table, for example. The ST60 does not, however, have the people counting feature, which I'm guessing might be what you're really asking about. If so, you would need to move to a newer camera setup, the cameras that support people counting are all the new Room Series - Room Kit Mini, standard Room Kit, and the Quad Cam unit, usually used with the RK Plus or Pro - but a Quad Cam with an SX80 also has people counting capability. 

Hope this helps!