Introduction

To an average PC user, AVerMedia is probably best known for their video capture cards. The company has been in that field for ages and has many interesting products to show, such as the Live Gamer series. I'm more familiar with their professional and enterprise offerings, primarily because I'm actively using several of their PTZ cameras for event live streaming, which they're selling under the shortened AVer moniker. Enterprises, small businesses, and educational entities are the primary target for the AVerMedia PA511D Mingle Bar, which, for simplicity's sake, I'll refer to as "Mingle Bar" throughout this review. Of course, with the global workforce migrating to home offices in the past couple of years, the aforementioned categorization becomes somewhat blurry; I can imagine someone showing interest in a product like the Mingle Bar with the intention to use it at home.



The AVerMedia Mingle Bar is essentially an all-in-one conference camera, which naturally fits into offices, huddle rooms, and other spaces where you need to be able to put multiple people in front of it and have them communicate with the person on the other side as smoothly as possible. With that goal in mind, the Mingle Bar isn't only equipped with an ultrawide lens, capable of capturing a 124° diagonal field of view in front of it, but also a far-field, beamforming dual omnidirectional stereo microphone array, and even an integrated 5 W speaker. It uses several AI technologies to help with noise reduction, acoustic echo cancellation, and even automatic framing, with AI-powered hand gesture recognition. The price is set to $600, which might strike you as steep, but it's noticeably less expensive compared to direct competitors, like the Poly Studio R30 ($800) and the Logitech Meetup ($900).

AVerMedia also came up with a clever trick to make the Mingle Bar more versatile: they've added an Ethernet port and a USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port, which you can use to connect the camera to your local network and peripherals, and by doing so effectively turn it into a docking station for the device you're connecting it to. They even threw in an HDMI video output and a 3.5-mm microphone input, so you can easily transfer the captured video to a big screen and use an external microphone, which can be an interesting option for large spaces as you add a third-party conference speaker and increase the range of voice pickup, which is limited to around four meters with the integrated omnidirectional microphones.

Specifications

• Maximum resolution: 3840x2160 @ 30 FPS
• Sensor: Sony Starvis 4K CMOS
• Optics: All glass, fixed-focus (model not specified)
• Focus range: 50 cm – infinite (5 m)
• Aperture: f/2.4
• Focal length: 1.86 mm
• Field of view: 124° diagonal, 115° horizontal, 79° vertical
• Microphone: Dual omnidirectional far-field beamforming (up to 4 m/13.12 ft pickup distance)
• Speaker: 5 W mono
• Connection: USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C (detachable cable)
• Ports: HDMI video output, USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, 3.5-mm microphone input, RJ45 (Ethernet)
• Privacy cover: Yes
• Compatibility: Microsoft Windows 10 or later, Apple macOS 10.14 or later, Chrome OS 85.0.4183.131 or later
• Supported apps: Facebook Messenger, FaceTime, Line, GoToWebinar, Cisco Webex, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, OBS, Streamlabs OBS, Skype, Skype for Business, Slack, Google Meet, Lifesize, Amazon Chime, Whereby
• Mounting: Supplied monitor and table stand, 1/4" thread
• Dimensions and weight: 295 x 70.4 x 78.7 mm, 555 g