One Mini.One workspace.
The same workspace Pro runs, up to 5 live sources side by side, with web-join and cross-network sharing, in the chassis that fits a huddle room, a classroom, or a whole floor of standard rooms.
Specs→
Inside Polaris Essentials
One Mini. The whole workspace.
Essentials isn’t a lite tier, and it isn’t a reduced build: it runs the same Polaris software as Pro. Every difference between the two is the chassis, not the platform: memory sets the share ceiling at 5 instead of 10, and with no USB input there is no room camera to bridge, so wireless BYOM and Link are Pro capabilities rather than a license away. Same workspace, same cloud, same security posture. Every capability below ships today.
Live sources composited side by side on the display, compared, annotated, rearranged from any seat, laid out automatically as sources join and leave, up to 5 here, 10 on Pro. The same workspace Pro runs, so a mixed fleet is never a mixed experience.
Why the workspace wins→Share from the browser on the device you walked in with, Chromebooks included. No client, no admin rights, no dongle drawer.
How web-join works→The casting paths your devices already speak, built in: Apple, Windows, and Chromebook users share natively on the LAN with zero Mersive software, and every share lands on the same workspace, side by side.
How the casting paths work→Every Essentials room joins the same fleet pane as the rest of the fleet: analytics, firmware, alerts, health, and idle-screen signage, from one login.
Explore the cloud→Certifications scoped to a cloud say nothing about the box on the wall, so the box gets its own proof. Two outside firms have had it: one over the network, one with the lid off, and the smaller unit was in scope in its own right.
Independent scan · July 2026
An outside firm scanned a managed Pod. The ports that answer are the casting and appliance functions, and no persistent media listener was enumerable at all, the real-time media path uses ephemeral per-session UDP ports that respond only after ICE consent. There is no standing media service in the room to probe.
Independent physical attack · May 2025
The hardware went further than a scan, and the smaller unit was in scope in its own right: a firm took a Gen 4 Pod and a Gen 4 Pod Mini in hand, opened them and attacked the hardware: UART and JTAG on the debug headers, an attempt to lift the firmware off the flash, a lab man-in-the-middle. No critical, high, medium or low-severity vulnerabilities were identified on either device. Root login over the debug interface is refused outright, with no password prompt even offered; the firmware could not be extracted; and no personally identifiable information was found stored on either unit.
On the device
Secure boot is mandatory on production firmware. The device’s own identity keys are sealed into an NXP SE050 secure element, the same part as Pro. USB access is by allowlist. 802.1X with EAP-TLS makes the room a first-class citizen of your NAC rather than an exception in it.
The company, and the cloud
Mersive is ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certified, with no nonconformities raised at the June 2026 surveillance audit, and the Polaris cloud this Essentials unit reports to is SOC 2 Type 2 attested.
Their caveat, which we keep: that does not make compromise impossible, but it would take an adversary of significant skill and effort. The full architecture, every scope statement and the audit findings: the Trust Center.
The full network and security posture on the page, including what Essentials deliberately doesn't do. That candor is the point.
| Specification | Polaris Essentials |
|---|---|
| Simultaneous shares in the workspace | Polaris Essentials can currently support up to 5 live sources composited side by side |
| Web-join from the browser: no app, no download | ✓ |
| Native AirPlay · Miracast · Google Cast (LAN) | ✓ all three, built in: cast from Apple, Windows and Chromebook devices on the room network with nothing installed |
| Mobile sharing · phones and tablets | ✓ the Polaris app for iOS and Android: share your screen, photos or a live whiteboard, and control the workspace from your seat |
| Specification | Polaris Essentials |
|---|---|
| 802.1X network authentication | ✓ shipping. The data sheet lists wireless security as WPA2, WPA2 Enterprise or IEEE 802.1X — so an Essentials room authenticates to your NAC with a certificate exactly as a Pro room does. |
| Cross-network sharing (no VPN) | ✓ included on every Polaris tier. Cloud-negotiated direct connections; signaling is outbound-only TLS on TCP 443, so there are no inbound firewall rules to request, and no VPN |
| Wireless security | WEP, WPA2, WPA2 Enterprise or IEEE 802.1X |
| Network interfaces | 1× 10/100/1000 RJ-45 (Realtek RTL8211F gigabit PHY), no PoE; MediaTek MT7921: Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax), 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax, 2.4 + 5 GHz, 2×2 MIMO; Bluetooth (MediaTek MT7921) |
| Specification | Polaris Essentials |
|---|---|
| Encryption in transit | Signaling and fleet management run outbound over HTTPS to Polaris Cloud. The device exposes no TLS listener of its own, so a port scan of the Mini finds nothing to negotiate against — the encryption that matters is on the outbound leg, not on an open port in your room |
| Secure boot · secure element | ✓ secure boot is mandatory on production firmware, not a setting; NXP SE050 secure element on board holds the device’s own identity and update-verification keys in hardware — the same part as Pro. The secure-element build assigns an I²C bus per machine and fails the build outright for any machine it does not handle, so every shipping unit, Mini included, has one |
| TAA-compliant supply chain | ✓ built with Advantech in Taiwan, a TAA-designated country, with the bare printed circuit board the only China-sourced item in the build |
| Signed updates, no downgrade — and automatic rollback on a failed load | ✓ the same firmware mechanism as Pro, because it is the same distro: update packages are checked for authenticity and integrity before they are applied and a downgrade to an earlier version is refused, while two firmware partitions mean a load that fails to come up returns to the last known-good version |
| Linux-hardened OS | ✓ purpose-built, minimized Linux at the display: no Windows attack surface, no general-purpose desktop |
| Physical: Kensington Nano Security Slot | ✓ on the chassis |
| Content protection | ✓ HDCP 2.0 |
| Specification | Polaris Essentials |
|---|---|
| True wireless BYOM (room AV bridged into your call) | — Pro only |
| Display outputs | One. Essentials drives a single display; Pro ingests and drives two — Pro only |
| HDMI input: wired ingest from a room system or a laptop | — Pro only. The Mini has no HDMI receiver on the board, so this is a chassis difference rather than a license |
| Specification | Polaris Essentials |
|---|---|
| HDMI output | 1× HDMI 2.0 out — one display, where Pro drives two. 4K (4096 × 2160) at 30 Hz; 1080p and 720p up to 30 Hz |
| Ethernet | 1× 10/100/1000 RJ-45. No PoE on Essentials — the Pod takes PoE+, the Mini does not |
| Wi-Fi radio | MediaTek MT7921: Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax), 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax compliant, 2.4 + 5 GHz, 2×2 MIMO; Bluetooth (MediaTek MT7921) |
| Video codecs | H.264 encode and decode · H.265 encode and decode · VP8 decode · VP9 decode · AV1 decode · JPEG/MJPEG decode. In service: H.264 carries AirPlay, Miracast and web-join over WebRTC; VP8 carries Google Cast; VP9 decodes digital signage playback |
| What the Mini does not have | No USB ports, no HDMI input and no audio-out jack: the rear panel is Kensington Nano Security Slot, Ethernet, HDMI 2.0 and DC power, and that is the whole of it. This is why wireless BYOM is a Pro capability rather than a license away — there is no USB host to put a room camera on |
| Specification | Polaris Essentials |
|---|---|
| Chipset / SoC | MediaTek MT8370 (Genio 510): ARM SoC with Mali GPU |
| NPU: on-device AI silicon | NPU 3.2 TOPS (INT8) in the MediaTek documentation, 6.4 TOPS at minimum precision (INT4), the convention MediaTek uses for its current Genio series. |
| RAM · storage | 4 GB · 32 GB eMMC: 19 GB available for storage, the remainder holding the system image and the second partition that carries an OTA update and allows firmware rollback |
| Video pipeline: simultaneous decode | H.264 and H.265 encode and decode; VP8 and VP9 decode — the same codec surface as Pro, not a reduced one. Composites into a 4K (4096 × 2160) 30 Hz output; 2+ concurrent 1080p30 decodes required, more supported; the ceiling is 5 simultaneous shares, set by memory on the smaller chassis rather than by licensing |
| Specification | Polaris Essentials |
|---|---|
| Power | 12 VDC, 2 A, 24 W max from the barrel jack; no PoE on Essentials — the Pod takes PoE+, the Mini does not. The power supply is in the box |
| Dimensions · weight | 58 × 140 × 30 mm. Essentials and Pro are different chassis: Pro is 86 × 184 × 30 mm. Both released data sheets print 150 × 67 × 30 mm and 204 g for both products, which cannot be true of two different enclosures; the sheets are being reissued |
| Operating environment | Indoor use only · 0°C (32°F) to 35°C (95°F) · 30% to 70% RH ambient |
| Storage environment | -20°C (-4°F) to 65°C (149°F) · 10% to 90% RH |
| Regulatory | FCC (USA) · UL (USA/Canada) · CB Scheme / IECEE (international) · UKCA (UK) · CE (EU) · RoHS (EU) · SCIP (EU) |
Same transparency policy as Pro: silicon, RAM, and I/O published on the page.
Yes. Essentials runs the same Polaris software as Pro: the same workspace, the same cloud, the same security posture. The differences are the chassis, not the platform.
Around 5 live sources, composited side by side and laid out automatically as sources join and leave. The ceiling is memory on the smaller chassis, not a license or a reduced build.
No, and it is a chassis limit rather than a license. True wireless BYOM bridges the room's own camera and mic into the call, so the peripherals have to be attached to the pod. The Mini chassis has no USB input. Link is a software bridge between the laptop in BYOM and the Pro, and the Pro is what controls the room's cameras and peripherals. That is why Link needs a Pro.
One. Polaris Essentials drives a single display, at DCI 4K, 4096 x 2160, at 30 Hz; Polaris Pro ingests and drives two.
Yes. Cross-network sharing is included on every Polaris tier, Essentials included. Cloud-negotiated direct connections, with outbound-only TLS signaling on TCP 443: no VPN, and no inbound firewall rule.
Hardware trials ship for every product, direct from Mersive. When the rooms prove it, we introduce your regional partner for the rollout.
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