Teams Rooms on Windows vs Android, and Rooms Basic vs Pro

What it does

Two linked choices for every meeting space: the platform (a Windows 11 compute module with a touch console, or an Android all-in-one or appliance) and the licence (Teams Rooms Basic or Teams Rooms Pro). The platform decides features and management; the licence decides how many rooms you can run and what you get to manage them with.

Key facts

Teams Rooms on Windows runs on Windows 11; Teams Rooms on Android needs Android 10 or later.
Windows-only features include: participating in breakout rooms, Front Row unified background, multi-camera send, spatial audio, People Recognition, 21:9 front-of-room displays, Miracast, coordinated meetings, third-party custom room control, Edge browser on the touch board, and overflow meeting join for 1k+ meetings.
Windows-only management features: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, Autopilot plus autologin, connected peripheral health monitoring, Remote Access from the Pro Management Portal, tenant restrictions and one time passcode.
Android-only features: starting Whiteboard from the console without a meeting, meeting controls on touch-enabled front-of-room displays, and local PTZ camera controls.
End-to-end encrypted meetings and cross-cloud meetings are available on Windows and limited on Android.
Teams Rooms Basic is capped at 25 licences per organisation; anything beyond 25 rooms must be Pro. Pro has no cap.
Basic includes Teams, Audio Conferencing and Whiteboard with core meeting experiences. Pro adds Teams Rooms Pro Management, Teams Phone Standard, Intune Plan 1 and Plan 2, Entra ID P1, Defender for Endpoint Plan 2, and features like Front Row, large gallery (up to 50 videos), dual screen and intelligent audio/video.
Signing in more than one Teams Rooms system in the same room with one resource account needs Pro. Using one account across different rooms breaches the licence terms.
Devices without a Pro (or Premium) licence lost Pro Management Portal access from 2 October 2023.
Per-user Microsoft 365 licences aren't authorised on shared meeting devices — rooms need a Rooms licence.

When to use / skip

Android is the right answer for the bulk of small and medium rooms: huddle spaces, four-to-eight-seat rooms, anywhere a video bar on the wall covers it. Fewer boxes, fewer cables, less to go wrong, and it's cheaper hardware. The Android feature gap mostly bites in rooms that want the clever stuff — dual screens with 21:9 Front Row layouts, multi-camera, Miracast, breakout rooms — and in organisations whose security team wants Defender for Endpoint and Autopilot on every Windows endpoint, rooms included.

Windows is the answer for boardrooms, large training rooms, divisible rooms, rooms with AV integrators and third-party control panels, and anywhere the client cares about the meeting experience being identical to the flagship. It's also where Microsoft tends to land new room features first. The cost is more moving parts and a Windows estate to patch, which Pro's management portal and Intune entitlement largely cover.

On licensing: Basic is a starter licence, not an estate licence. The 25-room cap and the missing management tooling make Pro the real default for anyone serious. Use Basic for a pilot, a small office with a handful of rooms, or rooms that genuinely just need "join meeting, share screen". Once you're past 25 rooms you have no choice anyway, and mixing Basic and Pro across an estate means two management stories.

Configuration decisions

Platform per room type: Android for small and medium, Windows for large, divisible or integrator-built rooms. Write it down as a room standard, not room-by-room.
Licence: Pro by default; Basic only where the room estate stays under 25 and the client accepts no Pro Management Portal.
Management: Pro Management Portal ownership — in-house, or a managed service partner — and how Intune enrolment is handled for Windows (Autopilot) vs Android (Teams admin center plus Intune).
Security posture: whether the client requires Defender for Endpoint on room devices. If yes, that pushes towards Windows.
PSTN calling from rooms: Pro includes Teams Phone Standard, so decide if rooms need a number and which PSTN model provides it.
Content sharing: wired HDMI ingest, Miracast (Windows only) or cloud sharing only.

Gotchas

Breakout rooms don't work from Android rooms. If the client runs workshops in the room, that's a problem you want to find before go-live, not after.
Pro Management Portal remote access is Windows only. Android rooms still appear in the portal, but when one misbehaves you can't remote in — someone walks to the room.
One resource account across two rooms is a licence breach, even if it "works". Each room gets its own account and licence.
Basic-licensed devices show up in the portal but you can't manage them. People assume the portal is broken.
E2EE meetings are limited on Android. Exec teams that use E2EE for sensitive calls will notice in the boardroom.
Feature tables change with every Rooms app release, and the Android gap narrows slowly. Re-check before you sign off a room standard.

Consultant notes

Build a room-type matrix (size, use case, platform, licence, peripherals) and get the client to sign it off. It saves arguing about each room individually.
Run a pilot of each platform in real rooms for a month. Users rarely notice the feature gap; facilities teams always notice the cabling.
For estates near 25 rooms, model the growth. Starting on Basic and converting later is a licence swap, but it's also the moment you discover nobody set up the portal.
Don't let the AV integrator choose the platform by default — they tend to pick what they stock. Make it a requirements decision.

Worth revisiting after each Teams Rooms on Android release, or when Microsoft refreshes the Windows vs Android comparison table