Windows 7 Laptops are Unable to Pair with Webex Room Devices

Windows 7 laptops are unable to pair with Webex Room Devices.

Error: 'Can't find any nearby Cisco Webex Room'

I get an error 'Can't find any nearby Cisco Webex Room' when trying to pair to Cisco Webex Room Devices.

Error: 'Can't find any nearby Cisco Webex Room' when trying to proximity pair from a Lenovo Carbon X1 laptop.

Problems with proximity pairing to Cisco Webex Room Devices.

Solution:

Update - Extending Support for Windows 7

With the September 2020 (40.9) update, we announced the end of support for the Windows 7 operating system. We will now continue Windows 7 support on Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and Microsoft Edge through June 2021. Cisco will continue to provide bug fixes and updates for Windows 7 wherever possible.

Proximity pairing is available on both Mac and Windows and allows the user to pair with Cisco Webex-enabled Room Devices and initiate a call without a challenge appearing on the device.

If proximity searching finds a device the Windows or Mac computer will become paired with said device and start to exchange tokens. If proximity pairing fails to find a device, an error message appears: 'Can't find any nearby Cisco Webex Room'.

Causes:

There are known issues with Windows device driver configuration and problems with ultrasound pairing.

The Lenovo Carbon X1 is known to have a number of issues where the internal microphone cannot be initialized and so is incapable of being used in either Shared or Exclusive Mode.

Solution:

Update the Audio Drivers on the Lenovo laptop to the latest version.

Lenovo PC Audio Driver Updates for Webex Desktop Proximity and Call Quality Improvements

Find out the exact Lenovo PC model.

You can do this in Control Panel > System or use the online tool at support.lenovo.com.
For the Carbon X1, Gen 1-3, you'll need to note which Generation you have.

Go to the Lenovo site and select your PC model.
Select Audio driver.

Select the audio component and Windows OS to find the right driver to download and install.

Using a supported microphone will allow you to get around this issue. The issue is more common on Windows 7 than Windows 10 where the new drivers improve performance.