Facebook announced a collaboration with video conferencing application Zoom, integrating Zoom meetings natively into Facebook’s new remote work solution for VR, Horizon Workrooms.
The integration won’t arrive until next year but will allow you to “easily join Zoom Meetings and use Zoom Whiteboard all from within VR.”
Horizon Workrooms is Facebook’s remote work collaboration tool for Oculus Quest 2, allowing several users to join a virtual boardroom and speak to each other as if they are in a real room, with avatars, spatial audio, remote desktop, keyboard tracking and group whiteboard features.
While the focus is on users joining using virtual reality, Workrooms also contains functionality that allows a non-VR user to join the meeting through a regular video call. However, starting next year, Workrooms will also allow VR users in the virtual boardroom to join an existing Zoom meeting and collaborate using Zoom Whiteboard. You can take a look at the announcement, which was made at Zoom’s Zoomtopia keynote speech, in the video embedded above. The Horizon Workrooms segment begins around the 34 minute mark.
Zoom Whiteboard was also announced at Zoomtopia, just before the Facebook and Zoom collaboration. It is an upcoming tool for Zoom that allows users to collaborate on a virtual whiteboard together, taking notes, making drawings, placing post-it notes and more. With Horizon Workrooms integration, VR users will be able to use Horizon’s desk whiteboard or the large standing whiteboard to alter the Zoom Whiteboard.
Zoom product manager Jordan Thiel said that they “envision” being able to save and share Zoom Whiteboards as well, which would allow you to save the end product after the meeting and send it around to those who weren’t in attendance.
Will you use the Zoom integration with Horizon Workrooms once it’s available? Let us know in the comments below.