Comparing Meetingroomtablet and Microsoft Teams Shared Device License
If you run Microsoft 365 and you want screens outside your meeting rooms, you will quickly find two ways to do it. Microsoft Teams Shared Device Licence that turns a certified panel into a room display. Or you use our meetingroomtablet software built for the job and put it on hardware you choose.
The licence cost between the two can be similar, but what you buy, how it is administered, and what you can do with the hardware afterwards are quite different.
Below, we discuss what each one actually is, where the money goes, and how to tell which suits your office.
Microsoft Shared Device v/s Meetingroomtablet
Microsoft Teams Shared Device is a licence, not a product. It covers shared equipment across your workplace: a panel outside a meeting room, a common area phone, a hot desk, and bookable desks. You add it to your Microsoft tenant and put it on a Microsoft certified panel you have bought separately.
MeetingRoomTablet Professional is software made for one job. It turns a screen outside a room into a live display showing availability and the day's schedule, and lets anyone standing there book, start, extend or end a meeting. It reads the room calendars you already run and works on hardware you already have or can buy anywhere.
Price and What You Have to Buy
Teams Shared Device | MeetingRoomTablet Professional | |
|---|---|---|
Licence price | Around $8 per device per month* | $8 per device per month, billed annually |
Screen you can use | A certified Teams panel | Any supported Android tablet, a purpose-built panel, or any browser |
Free version to try | No | Yes, a read-only display at no cost for up to 3 devices |
The licence price is the same. The hardware is not.
Equip ten rooms and the certified route asks for roughly $5,000 to $9,000 of panels before the first month's licence. The same ten rooms on tablets you buy from any supplier start at around $2,000, for the same $8 a month.
What the Panel Does
Be clear about this part, because it is where people expect a difference and there mostly is not one.
Teams Shared Device | MeetingRoomTablet | |
|---|---|---|
Free or busy at a glance | Yes | Yes |
Upcoming meetings and availability | Yes | Yes |
Upcoming room schedule | Yes | Yes |
Book a room at the door | Yes | Yes |
Check in when the meeting starts | Yes | Yes |
Release the room if nobody turns up | Yes | Yes |
Extend or end a meeting | Yes | Yes |
Both do the daily job well. Walk up to either panel and you will not notice which one you are using. So the choice comes down to the four things below.
1. Who Gets to Change the Rules
Room displays need tuning. The grace period before an unclaimed booking is released is never right first time. Neither are the hours a room can be booked, the smallest slot people can take, or how far ahead they can reserve. You learn the right settings by watching how your people behave for a month and then adjusting.
On the Microsoft side, room and panel settings are managed within Microsoft's administration ecosystem. Depending on the setting, this can involve Teams Admin Center, Microsoft Places, Exchange resource-mailbox settings or device configuration profiles. Microsoft provides delegated Places roles, so a facilities or workplace team can be given appropriate permissions without necessarily becoming a Global Administrator. The trade-off is that administration still follows the Microsoft management model and may span several Microsoft admin surfaces.
With MeetingRoomTablet, the person who owns the rooms is an administrator. In fact, the owner of meetingroomtablet do not even need to be an Azure or Entra ID administrator once the consent is granted by the administrator. They sign in to the web portal, change the grace period for one room or all of them, adjust opening hours, set booking rules, switch a panel to display only, and it reaches the screens without anyone touching your Microsoft tenant.
The advantage is that the people closest to the problem can fix it the same afternoon, and your IT team does not have to hand out tenant privileges to let them.
2. What You Can Learn About Your Rooms
Microsoft provides room and space analytics through Microsoft Places and related Teams management tools. The exact capabilities depend on the space type and licence. Teams Shared Space can support analytics for supported shared spaces, while Teams Rooms Pro provides the fuller Teams Rooms management and analytics experience.
MeetingRoomTablet is built around operational questions such as how much bookable time is used, how much booked time was genuinely occupied, how many bookings were never checked into, how late meetings really start, when demand peaks across the week, how long meetings are booked for against how long they run, and how much time gets handed back when people end early. Every report filters by building, floor and room, and exports to Excel.
MeetingRoomTablet is built around the question people actually ask, which is whether the rooms you have are enough. Its reports cover how much of your bookable time is used, how much of that booked time was genuinely occupied, how many bookings were never checked into and what that cost you in room hours, how late meetings really start, when demand peaks across the week, how long meetings are booked for against how long they run, and how much time gets handed back when people end early. Every report filters by building, floor and room, and exports to Excel.
The advantage is that when somebody asks whether you need more meeting rooms, you can show that four of them sat locked and empty every morning, at the $8 tier rather than the $40 one.
3. How the Displays Look
Teams panels look like Teams panels. In a Microsoft-standardised workplace that may be exactly what you want.
MeetingRoomTablet puts your logo on every panel, set across the whole account or differently per floor, building or brand. Any individual screen can also be set to display only, which suits a lobby board where you do not want people booking.
The advantage is that your room displays read as part of your building rather than as somebody's IT project.
4. What Happens If Your Workplace Changes
Offices consolidate. Floors get handed back. Meeting rooms become desks.
A certified Teams panel is specialised hardware designed primarily for room and space management. When the rooms go, its usefulness outside that role can be more limited than a general-purpose tablet.
A tablet is a tablet. It becomes a desk panel, a visitor screen at reception, a shop-floor terminal or a spare, or it goes back into the IT pool and gets issued to somebody.
The advantage is that trying room displays on ten tablets means that if it does not work out, you still own ten tablets.
Where Teams Shared Space Is the Better Choice
Three situations where we would not argue.
1. You want one Microsoft licensing model across more workplace scenarios. Shared Space can cover supported room panels, bookable desks, hot desks and common-area phones. Microsoft's current licensing model can also provide Single Space licences for additional bookable spaces, subject to its licensing rules. If desk booking is on your list too, that can simplify procurement.
2. Everything must live in the Microsoft admin centre. If your policy is that no workplace system sits outside Microsoft, this is the straightforward answer, and central control is the point rather than the drawback.
3. The licence bundles things you would otherwise buy. It includes Microsoft device management and identity components per device. If you were going to pay for those anyway, count them.
One rule is worth knowing before you plan around the $8 figure. A Teams Panel in a space without a Teams Rooms system can use Teams Shared Space. If the space has a Teams Rooms system, the paired panel can be covered by the Teams Rooms Pro licence instead, currently $40 per room per month. Ask your Microsoft partner which of your rooms fall into each model, because it changes the budget considerably.
Which to Choose
Teams Shared Space if you are buying certified Teams panels anyway, want Microsoft to manage the room/space experience within its ecosystem, or want one Microsoft licensing model across rooms and other supported shared spaces. Just note that the variety of Microsoft certified devices are limited.
MeetingRoomTablet if you want to choose your own/any hardware, want a dedicated room-management interface for workplace/facilities teams, or need reporting focused on operational room utilisation and reclaimed time.
Either way, try it on one door first. MeetingRoomTablet has a free read-only tier, so you can put a live display on your busiest room at no cost and see whether your people use it.
Wrapping Up
Take a company of around 250 people with fourteen meeting rooms across two floors. The facilities manager has been asked whether the business needs more rooms before the lease renewal.
The certified route costs roughly $7,000 in panels and gives her access to Microsoft's room-management and analytics ecosystem. The same $8 a month on tablets costs around $3,000 in hardware, gives the facilities team a dedicated room-management system, and provides operational reporting such as no-shows and reclaimed room time.
Start free and put a display on your busiest room this week.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Teams Shared Devices licence?
It is a Microsoft licence, renamed Teams Shared Space in 2026, for supported shared workplace scenarios including meeting room panels, common-area phones, hot desks and bookable desks. It costs around $8 per device per month; verify current pricing and entitlements before publication.
Do I need it to run a room display?
Only if you are running a certified Microsoft Teams panel. MeetingRoomTablet does not require any Microsoft add-on licence.
Is MeetingRoomTablet cheaper?
The software is the same price at $8 per device per month. The saving is in the hardware, because you are not tied to a certified panel.
Who can change room settings like the grace period?
On a Teams panel, an administrator with rights over your Microsoft tenant. With MeetingRoomTablet, an administrator of the room system, which can be your facilities or workplace manager without giving them any Microsoft privileges.
Do both stop no-shows?
Both can support check-in and automatic release of unused reservations, although exact behaviour depends on configuration and how the reservation was created. The administration model for changing the release policy is different.
What reporting do I get?
Microsoft provides space and room analytics through Microsoft Places and related Teams management tools, with capabilities depending on the space type and licence. Teams Rooms Pro provides the fuller Teams Rooms management and analytics experience. MeetingRoomTablet includes utilisation, true occupancy, no-show, check-in punctuality, peak demand, meeting duration and reclaimed time reports at $8.
What if my meeting rooms have Teams Rooms video systems?
If the room has a Teams Rooms system, the paired panel can be covered by the Teams Rooms Pro licence, currently $40 per room per month, rather than Shared Space. Confirm which rooms apply with your Microsoft partner.
Can I try before committing?
MeetingRoomTablet has a free plan that turns a supported tablet into a live read-only display, with no card required.
