New features like noice isolation and bug fixes

What is new

Voice isolation (beta) and dereverberation

• Voice isolation is now available on the Neat Bar and Neat Board!
• With our deep noise suppression model being added to Neat Bars and Neat Boards, the microphones on on these devices can now remove most unwanted noises while preserving the clarity of voices. This model includes dereverberation, which is designed to reduce the detrimental effect of audio waves reflecting off surfaces in the room to create a “cavernous” or “echoey” quality.
• This will not be enabled by default. To enable noise suppression, enter the “Audio & video” page in the Neat system settings of your device and enable the “Voice isolation (beta)” toggle.
• Note: This feature processes microphone signals, and it is therefore the far-end participants that will benefit from this feature.
• Note: While this will improve the quality of speech picked up by our microphones, there is no perfect solution and you may still want to apply acoustic treatment to your room for optimal audio. More information on how to set up your room for optimal audio quality can be found here

Removed beta flag for voice isolation

• Voice isolation is no longer a beta feature on the Neat Bar Pro and Neat Frame, and the beta flag has been removed from the toggle in Neat system settings.
• This update also introduces the voice isolation toggle to the Neat Frame’s system settings. Using this toggle you can choose to disable the use of Neat’s noise suppression algorithm. Voice isolation will be enabled by default.

Replaced “Irkutsk” with “Singapore” time zone

In this release the “Irkutsk” time zone has been replaced with a “Singapore” time zone.

Regular polling of Neat Pulse web server

• In order to prepare for bulk enrollment of Neat devices in Neat Pulse, Neat devices that are not enrolled in a Neat Pulse Control tenant will now actively poll our Neat Pulse web server. Upon startup, these devices will poll sec.pulse.neat.no once per hour using https until the device is enrolled in a Neat Pulse Control tenant.
• Note: Bulk enrollment of Neat devices into a Neat Pulse Control tenant is not fully supported. This feature will be available in a future version of Neat Pulse Control. More information about the latest version of Neat Pulse Control can be found here

Additional Neat Pulse information shown on devices

If a device is enrolled in a Neat Pulse Control tenant, additional information including the device name, id, profile, and location, will now appear under the Neat Pulse menu in the device’s system settings.

Neat Symmetry layout changes

While using individual auto framing, groups of 4 people will now be displayed in a 2×2 layout instead of a 1×4 layout. Based on customer feedback we’ve found that 2×2 layout generally results in a more pleasing framing of the people in the room when compared to the tall and narrow crops that result from 1×4 layouts.

Improved audio stability while using Direct Guest Join

• After working with Microsoft and Zoom to identify the root cause of audio issues heard during Direct Guest Join calls from Neat Bars and Neat Boards that are set up as Zoom Rooms and joining Microsoft Teams meetings, we have made some changes in our firmware to improve the way audio is handled in these scenarios.
• Note: While these changes have helped to significantly reduce the number of audio glitches heard during Direct Guest Join calls on Neat Bars and Neat Boards, a full fix for any Direct Guest Join issues will need to be provided by Zoom and Microsoft.

Fixed bugs and improvements

CUS-405

In previous releases, it was possible for HDMI content sharing to fail intermittently on a Neat Bar Pro. This issue has been resolved in this release.

CUS-574

In previous releases, it was possible for a Neat Board’s screen to become unresponsive after entering screen standby mode, requiring a power cycle in order to bring the device back online. This issue has been resolved in this release.

CUS-627

In previous releases, it was possible for the display connected to the HDMI1 port of a Neat Bar to not get turned off with CEC commands when the Neat Bar enters standby mode. This has been resolved in this release.

CUS-704

In previous releases, it was possible for a Neat Pad to be unable to find a Neat Bar to pair with over Wifi in certain scenarios. This has been resolved in this release.

CUS-714

In previous releases, it was possible for a Neat Frame’s microphone to stop sending audio into a Microsoft Teams call after switching from a bluetooth microphone to the native hardware. This issue has been resolved in this release.

CUS-753

When updating a Neat Bar Pro to our previous version (NFD1.20230504.0025), it was possible for a “No camera” warning to appear after the update. This has been resolved in this release.

CUS-756

When updating a Neat Bar Pro to our previous version (NFD1.20230504.0025), it was possible for the device to lose CEC functionality after the update. This has been resolved in this release.

CUS-764

In our previous release, it was possible for USB speakers connected to a Neat Bar Pro to not function as expected during Direct Guest Join calls. This issue has been resolved in this release.

CUS-775

In our previous release, it was possible for logs gathered from a Neat device to be filled with repeated error messages unrelated to its current behavior that could make it so a majority of log history was no longer visible. This has been resolved in this release.

CUS-780

In previous releases, it was possible for the camera on a Neat Bar Pro to not initialize properly while joining Microsoft Teams calls, resulting in no camera feed being sent from the Neat Bar Pro. This issue has been resolved in this release.

CUS-804

In previous releases, Neat’s auto framing settings on a device running Microsoft Teams would revert back to “individuals” after a reboot instead of keeping the previous selection. This issue has been resolved in this release.

CUS-805

In previous releases, it was possible for the Microsoft Teams application to request aspect ratios other than 16:9 from a Neat Board, which resulted in a compressed video feed and a forced reframing of individuals in the room. This issue has been resolved in this release.

CUS-791

In previous releases, it was possible for a Neat Frame to become unresponsive after entering standby mode. This has been resolved in this release.

INBUGS-1966

In previous releases, it was possible for the Microsoft Teams application to request aspect ratios other than 16:9 from a Neat Frame, which resulted in a compressed video feed and a forced reframing of individuals in the room. This issue has been resolved in this release.

INBUGS-2052

In previous releases, it was possible for the “about” page on a Neat device to show that the device is connected even when there is no internet connection. This issue has been resolved in this release.