As organisations invest more heavily in meeting rooms, collaboration spaces, and hybrid work technology, AV monitoring has become a critical part of keeping those systems reliable.
But with so many tools available from manufacturer dashboards to enterprise platforms choosing the best AV monitoring software can be confusing.
This guide breaks down the main options, compares them clearly, and helps you choose the right solution based on real operational needs.
AV Monitoring Starts With the Manufacturer
Most AV device manufacturers provide their own monitoring or device management platforms. These tools are designed to manage their own hardware, and for smaller or standardised environments, they can be effective.
Examples of Manufacturer Monitoring Tools
- Poly Lens
Used to monitor Poly headsets, cameras, phones, and video systems. It provides firmware visibility, device status, and basic health metrics within the Poly ecosystem. - Yealink Device Management Platform
Designed for Yealink phones and video conferencing devices, offering online/offline status, firmware management, and configuration controls. - Crestron XiO Cloud
A powerful cloud platform for managing Crestron control systems, touch panels, displays, and room devices, with deep insight into Crestron hardware.
These platforms work well when environments are small and single-vendor.
Why Manufacturer Tools Stop Scaling
As AV environments become hybrid, complexity grows quickly.
Most organisations soon deal with:
- Multiple locations
- Mixed AV vendors
- Different room types and generations of equipment
- Microsoft Teams Rooms or Zoom Rooms layered on top
At this stage, teams are forced to log into multiple vendor portals, each showing only part of the picture. Health checks become manual, alerts are inconsistent, and issues often go unnoticed until meetings fail.
This is where businesses start looking beyond manufacturer tools.
Manufacturer Tools vs Unified AV Monitoring Platforms
Here’s a simple comparison to show where the difference lies:
Manufacturer Monitoring Tools
Pros
- Native support for their own devices
- Good firmware and basic health visibility
- Often included with hardware
Cons
- Limited to one brand
- No single view across the environment
- Manual portal switching
- Poor scalability in multi-vendor setups
Unified AV Monitoring Platforms
Pros
- Device-agnostic monitoring
- Single dashboard across all rooms and sites
- Proactive alerting and automation
- Better suited to hybrid and enterprise environments
Cons
- Requires evaluation and onboarding
- Licensing varies by scale and features
For most medium to large organisations — and almost all MSPs — unified platforms become the only practical option.
What to Look for in the Best AV Monitoring Software
When evaluating AV monitoring solutions, avoid focusing only on device status. The best AV monitoring software should support operational insight, not just visibility.
Key capabilities to look for:
- Firmware insights
See which devices are outdated, vulnerable, or inconsistent across sites. - Utilisation insights
Understand how rooms and systems are actually being used, not just booked. - Tiered alerting
Set priorities so critical rooms and devices trigger faster responses. - Site and room documentation management
Store drawings, manuals, configurations, and notes where support teams can actually find them. - Device-agnostic support
Monitor mixed vendors without forcing standardisation or lock-in. - Easy deployment and onboarding
A solution that takes months to deploy defeats the purpose. - Integration with UC and VC platforms
Monitoring AV in isolation is no longer enough in Teams and Zoom environments.
Why AVM360 Stands Out
When measured against these criteria, AVM360 stands out as a strong unified AV monitoring platform.
It is:
- Device agnostic, supporting mixed-vendor environments
- Flexible and low-code, making it easier to adapt to different customer needs
- Capable of delivering firmware insights, utilisation data, and tiered alerting
- Designed to manage site and room-level documentation, not just devices
- Easier to deploy and integrate compared to heavier enterprise platforms
For organisations and MSPs that need agility — not vendor lock-in — this flexibility becomes a major advantage.
Buyer’s Guide: Choosing the Right AV Monitoring Software
Before selecting a platform, ask these questions:
- How many vendors do we support today — and tomorrow?
If the answer is “more than one,” device-agnostic monitoring matters. - Do we want alerts before users complain?
Proactive monitoring is the real value, not dashboards. - Do we need usage and performance insights, not just uptime?
Data should help improve spaces, not just fix failures. - Will this integrate with our IT or MSP workflows?
Alerts should flow into tickets, reports, and SLAs. - Can we deploy and scale this easily?
The best AV monitoring software reduces effort — it doesn’t add to it.
Final Thoughts
Manufacturer tools like Poly Lens, Yealink Device Management, and Crestron XiO Cloud are valuable — within their own ecosystems.
But as AV environments become hybrid, distributed, and multi-vendor, logging into multiple portals is no longer sustainable.
For most businesses, the best AV monitoring software is the one that delivers:
- A unified view
- Proactive insights
- Operational efficiency
- And room readiness, every day
Because when meetings matter, visibility matters even more.
