Rooms, Cars, Cameras:
If It Has a Calendar, It Can Have a Display

Short answer: A "meeting room" in Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 is just a calendar resource — and both platforms let you create resources for anything shareable: pool cars, camera kits, editing suites, phone booths, parking spots, a podcast studio, even the canteen. Once something is a resource, it can be booked from any calendar, and a display mounted next to it shows live status and lets people tap-to-book on the spot. The display earns its place wherever people physically walk past the thing; skip it for resources nobody encounters in person.

The Room Display's founder first built a scrappy booking system at a film production company to keep track of studios, cameras and cars — which is why the app has never assumed a resource must be a room.

A room is just a calendar with a door

When you book "Conference Room A," you're inviting a resource calendar to an event. The platform checks for conflicts, accepts or declines, and everyone sees the slot as taken. Nothing in that mechanism knows or cares that the resource has walls. Google Workspace resource calendars and Microsoft 365 resource mailboxes work identically for a car key, a camera case, or an 80-square-meter canteen.

That means every scheduling feature you already rely on — conflict prevention, visibility in everyone's calendar, booking from Outlook or Google Calendar — applies to any shared thing in your office, for free, today.

What offices actually make bookable

The pattern shows up everywhere once you look for it:

• Pool cars and vans — ends the whiteboard-by-the-key-hook system
• Camera and AV kits — who has the good camera, and until when?
• Editing suites and podcast studios — rooms in practice, even if nobody called them meeting rooms
• Phone booths — bookable for scheduled calls, walk-in the rest of the time
• Parking spots and EV chargers — scarce, contested, perfect for calendars
• The canteen — often the largest and best-equipped space in the office, idle 80% of the day; one customer of ours turned theirs into the office's main meeting room

Setting it up in Google Workspace

In the Admin console, resources live under Buildings and resources. Rooms are the default resource category, but Google explicitly supports other resource types — when you add a resource you give it a category ("Other resource" rather than a room), a type you define yourself (Car, Camera, Studio), and a name. It then appears in Google Calendar's booking interface like any room, with the same conflict handling. The full walkthrough is in our Google Workspace room booking guide — the steps are the same, minus the floor plan.

Setting it up in Microsoft 365

Microsoft draws the distinction at the mailbox level: a room mailbox for spaces, an equipment mailbox for things. Both are created in the Exchange admin center (or via New-Mailbox -Equipment in PowerShell), both auto-accept bookings and refuse double-bookings, and both show up in Outlook's scheduling. One practical wrinkle: Outlook's Room Finder and room-display apps discover rooms, not equipment — so if you want the resource to appear in those pickers and on a display, creating it as a room mailbox is the pragmatic choice even when it's technically a "thing." Our Microsoft 365 room mailbox setup guide covers the mechanics.

Where a display makes sense — and where it doesn't

The calendar resource works everywhere. The display at the resource is a separate decision, and the test is simple:

→ Do people physically walk past this thing when they want it?

• Yes → display earns its keep. Mount an iPad by the key cabinet, the camera shelf, the studio door, the canteen entrance. People see live status ("Van 2: booked until 15:00, Ida"), see what's coming up, and tap-to-book on the spot — digital signage for things instead of rooms, with booking built in.
• No → skip the display. A parking spot booked from home before the commute, or a license pool nobody visits, gains nothing from a screen in a hallway. The calendar resource alone does the job.

The display adds value at the point of physical encounter; without one, it's just a screen nobody sees.

Start with the thing people fight over

Don't inventory the whole office. Pick the one shared thing that currently causes the most Slack messages — usually the car, the camera, or the nicest room-that-isn't-a-room — make it a resource, put a display next to it, and let the calendar absorb the conflict. Every argument it prevents is the business case for the next one.

FAQ

Can you book things other than rooms in Google Workspace or Microsoft 365? Yes. Google supports non-room resources with custom types (car, camera, studio), and Microsoft has equipment mailboxes alongside room mailboxes. Both get full conflict prevention and appear in normal calendar booking.

What's the difference between a room mailbox and an equipment mailbox in Microsoft 365? Both are resource mailboxes that auto-accept bookings. Room mailboxes represent spaces and appear in Outlook's Room Finder and room-display apps; equipment mailboxes represent things like vehicles or camera kits and only appear in regular scheduling — use a room mailbox if you want it on a display.

Does a meeting room display work for equipment like cars or cameras? Yes, if the display points at the resource's calendar — it shows live status and supports tap-to-book. It's worth mounting wherever people physically pick the thing up, like a key cabinet or kit shelf.

The Room Display works with any Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 resource calendar — room, car, camera or canteen — for $99 per iPad, one-time.