At Neat, protecting your meetings, devices, and data isn’t just important—it’s fundamental to everything we build.

Originally published in January 2025, this article has been updated to reflect the continued evolution of Neat OS and our device platform.

The security of our devices isn’t just a priority—it’s our top priority.

As video collaboration becomes central to how organizations work, meeting room devices must be both reliable and secure. Neat OS is designed to protect your collaboration environment while delivering a consistent, seamless meeting experience.

From guarding against unauthorized screen sharing, recordings, and file transfers to mitigating other potential risks, security is built into Neat devices from the ground up.

What’s new in Neat OS

Neat OS continues to evolve alongside both Android and our device portfolio.

Most notably:

• All Neat Gen 2 devices and Neat Pad now run Android 13, bringing stronger platform security and improved long-term support.
• Our cloud-based management platform Neat Pulse continues to expand, giving IT teams greater visibility and control over device fleets and software updates.
• We’re preparing for future Android upgrades, including Android 15 and beyond, ensuring our devices benefit from the latest security enhancements.

These advancements reflect our continued commitment to keeping Neat devices secure, modern, and ready for the future.

A hardened, identity-centric Android platform

Neat OS is a hardened operating system built on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), optimized for enterprise-grade collaboration across platforms such as Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom. It follows a silicon-to-cloud security model, ensuring each device is cryptographically verified before accessing corporate resources.

At its core, Neat OS uses a multi-layered security architecture rooted in hardware trust, including:

• Cryptographic device identity*: Each device is provisioned with a factory-enrolled certificate anchored in a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE). This unique identity forms the foundation for secure communication and cloud-based management.
• Hardware-backed attestation: Services can verify both the device’s identity and its integrity before granting access to sensitive data.
• Verified boot and secure chain of trust: From power-on through to the application layer, every component is validated to ensure only authentic, Neat-signed software is executed.
• Advanced encryption and key isolation: Full-disk encryption protects data at rest, while a hardware-backed keystore ensures cryptographic keys remain securely isolated.
• Enforced least privilege and sandboxing: Using Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux), Neat OS applies strict access controls to contain potential threats and limit system exposure.
• Anti-rollback protection: Devices cannot be downgraded to older, potentially vulnerable software versions.

Together, these hardware and software layers create a Zero Trust foundation for modern collaboration environments, giving IT teams confidence that their devices are secure from the moment they power on.

*Factory-enrolled certificates are available on devices shipped with Neat OS 25.4.2 or newer.

Privacy-first AI and machine learning

Neat leverages artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to create more intuitive, human-centric meeting experiences. By processing de-identified data, such as movement patterns and audio frequencies, Neat devices automatically optimize camera framing and audio performance while providing insights into room usage.

This intelligence is built with a privacy-first approach. Our ML models are designed to detect presence and activity to enhance the meeting experience—not to identify individuals. Neat devices do not use facial recognition, ensuring that user privacy is preserved at all times.

Security built into development

Security at Neat isn’t a one-time feature—it’s an ongoing process.

Our hardware and software engineering teams continuously improve Neat OS to maintain strong security, reliability, and performance across our devices. Every release goes through extensive testing, including:

• Penetration testing by independent cybersecurity experts, simulating real-world attack scenarios to proactively identify vulnerabilities
• White-box testing, where internal architecture and code are analyzed for weaknesses
• Black-box testing, replicating external attack conditions without prior system knowledge

This approach ensures an unbiased assessment of our devices’ security posture, helping us identify and address potential risks before they can be exploited, and validating that Neat devices meet high standards for secure collaboration environments.

We also secure our over-the-air (OTA) update infrastructure, ensuring that devices receive only trusted firmware and software updates.

Advancing with Android 13

Neat OS continues to advance alongside the Android platform.

Our devices originally launched on Android 8.1, later progressed to Android 10, and now run Android 13 across all Neat Gen 2 devices, bringing stronger platform security and long-term support.

Looking ahead, we’re preparing for future Android upgrades, including Android 15 and beyond, ensuring our devices continue to benefit from the latest Android security improvements and Linux kernel advancements.

Keeping Neat OS aligned with modern Android versions helps us deliver:

• Stronger platform security
• Longer support lifecycles
• Greater device longevity and sustainability

Secure device management with Neat Pulse

With Neat Pulse, IT teams can monitor, manage, and update their entire fleet from a single place.

Neat Pulse enables organizations to:

• Deploy secure firmware and software updates
• Maintain visibility into device health and status
• Keep devices current with the latest security patches

This centralized approach helps organizations keep collaboration spaces secure while simplifying day-to-day device management.

Looking at Microsoft’s Device Ecosystem Platform (MDEP)

Some Microsoft Teams customers have asked about Microsoft’s Device Ecosystem Platform (MDEP), another security-hardened AOSP platform designed for collaboration.

Microsoft designed MDEP to enhance security and manageability across Teams devices. At Neat, we’re bringing devices to market that combine MDEP’s AOSP framework with Neat’s differentiated capabilities, including our intelligence and AI-driven experiences.

The first device to include these enhanced MDEP capabilities will be Neat Board 32, followed by Neat Pad Pro as a Microsoft Teams Panel scheduler. Both these devices will be running Android 15 from launch.

In the meantime, customers can be confident that Neat devices are designed with a strong, modern security foundation that meets both current and future needs.

Security, reliability, and simplicity—by design

Neat’s goal has always been simple: create collaboration devices that are easy to use, reliable, and secure.

With Neat OS continuing to evolve alongside Android—and with the growing capabilities of Neat Pulse—we remain committed to delivering devices organizations can trust in meeting spaces around the world.

Discover Neat’s video devices, join a live virtual demo, or book a one-on-one session to experience them firsthand.