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Show HN: Watercooler – macOS Zoom alternative (no Electron, hi-res video)

getwatercooler.io

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Re: Show HN: Watercooler – macOS Zoom alternative (no Electron, hi-res video)

#11

Post by hiphipjorge »

viraptor wrote: post #9

The "less CPU" image seems to be wrong. It shows more CPU usage for water cooler.

The screenshot does show slightly higher CPU. We wanted to remain honest in that way. Strictly speaking, CPU usage is lower if you use Watercooler over having to open your browser to do a video call (if you add up all processes) and it's comparable to Zoom. Will work on maybe changing the phrasing on this. Thanks for the feedback!

Edit: Changed the copy to just "Watercooler uses less memory and than any other video conferencing app with comparable CPU."

Re: Show HN: Watercooler – macOS Zoom alternative (no Electron, hi-res video)

#12

Post by hiphipjorge »

erikpl wrote: post #8

This looks amazing. Haven't tried it out so far, but it does look promising. Most of my peers use Windows though :/

We're very, very close to coming out with a browser client soon. The experience is not as nice as the native one, but it will solve this issue of being able to use it with anyone.

If you're looking to test it out with anyone, feel free to schedule a demo (link in the landing page). The link is kinda hidden, but it's there!

Re: Show HN: Watercooler – macOS Zoom alternative (no Electron, hi-res video)

#13

Post by hiphipjorge »

danudey wrote: post #10
tekkertje wrote: post #3

Looks great and good to see an os-x native alternative to Zoom!

Honestly, with the amount of Electron crap out there, it's nice to see a macOS-native anything .

Exactly! Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Re: Show HN: Watercooler – macOS Zoom alternative (no Electron, hi-res video)

#14

Post by hiphipjorge »

akeck wrote: post #7
hiphipjorge wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The two mains reason right now would be because you can do screensharing and because this is not tied to your iCloud account in any way. In the future, we will probalby have other clients other than the macOS one.

Apparently Messages can do screen sharing. I haven't tried though. https://support.apple.com/et-ee/guide/messages/icht11883/mac

Screensharing in Messages does exist, but it's convoluted. This experience is (in my very biased opinion) way nicer.

Re: Show HN: Watercooler – macOS Zoom alternative (no Electron, hi-res video)

#15

Post by hiphipjorge »

rvz wrote: post #6
hiphipjorge wrote: post #2

Hi HN, Creator of Watercooler here. Happy to answer any questions! A little more Watercooler: For the past couple of months I’ve been doing a lot of video calls. Personally, I didn’t quite like any of the video call apps out there. The ones done in JS/Electron/Browser always felt sluggish/slow and Zoom has a very unintuitive UI and seems to be made for boring corporate meetings. I eventually decided to make a minimal…

This. Is. Stunning. Honestly, Thank you very much for creating this native app. I am fed up of my Macbook being served this Electron junk food that is filling up my computers RAM and disk space, which is unnecessary for the tasks I am doing. Discord, Keybase, Element, Zulip, Slack, Skype and many others are constantly fighting for RAM on my PC and running my system to the ground. Some of the apps I mentioned are made…

Thank you for the kind words. Everything you said is exactly my motivation for building this. Please let me know what the experience of using it is like and what can we do to keep improving it.

When it comes to comparing this to Zoom, I would say that the video/audio quality is just as good if you have a good internet connection and a tiny little bit of luck. Like it really truly can be and has been many times during testing. What I think the app needs to be better at is handling situations where bandwidth is not as plentiful or the system doesn't have that menu resources. That's the next thing I want to work on with this.

Re: Typo: That one escaped me last night after putting the finishing touches on this. Will fix and upload to the App Store in a bit.

Re: Show HN: Watercooler – macOS Zoom alternative (no Electron, hi-res video)

#18

Post by car »

Looks great, now just have to find a counterpart to test it out with. I love the fact that it's native, props for that. I had no idea that people are putting Electron/browser apps out there, yuck.

How does signaling between clients work? Is this going to a server you control?

And what about encryption, is that enforced by WebRTC per se?

Lastly, are you routing calls through TURN servers if NAT tunneling with STUN/ICE fails, or always?

I just wish that SIP had taken off. Then we could just call each others email address. Kinda works with FaceTime, except it's Apple's garden.

Re: Show HN: Watercooler – macOS Zoom alternative (no Electron, hi-res video)

#19

Post by mft_ »

hiphipjorge wrote: post #11
viraptor wrote: post #9

The "less CPU" image seems to be wrong. It shows more CPU usage for water cooler.

The screenshot does show slightly higher CPU. We wanted to remain honest in that way. Strictly speaking, CPU usage is lower if you use Watercooler over having to open your browser to do a video call (if you add up all processes) and it's comparable to Zoom. Will work on maybe changing the phrasing on this. Thanks for the feedback! Edit: Changed the copy to just "Watercooler uses less memory and than any other video c…

While this might be interesting and relevant to the HN audience, I doubt that this is a differentiating factor for 99% of today’s video call users. And of the two, I’d argue processor would be more important than memory: high processor usage makes your lap hot and the fans kick in; whereas in today’s world of multi-GB memory as standard, 100 vs. 200 vs. 300 MB memory usage is effectively invisible.

Re: Show HN: Watercooler – macOS Zoom alternative (no Electron, hi-res video)

#20

Post by mjshiggins »

Wow, there is an incredible amount of hate for Electron. I understand the desire to avoid it with consumer apps and it feels strange to have large companies using it, but I'm honestly a huge fan of what they've been able to do with it for GUI design. I'm a roboticist who has been stuck in the 90s with tools like tkinter / qt / whatever, and electron has finally enabled me to build something modern for control and monitoring. It's been a godsend, but maybe that's why we are seeing so much adoption in the commercial space.
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