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Show HN: Awesometalk – Free video calling without the hassle
11–19 of 19 posts
Re: Show HN: Awesometalk – Free video calling without the hassle
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Skype I have the option to show call technical info turned on. It is immensely helpful since it shows continually updated values for latency, packet loss (in both directions), codec in use, bitrates etc. From that I can easily tell what the issues are (latency spikes vs packet loss are hard to distinguish due to the same symptoms). That isn't helpful for the masses, but you can display some sort of connection qual…
Thanks Roger -- we really want to create a connection quality indicator like you describe, kind of like the number of bars on your cell connection. One of our biggest frustrations with existing services is that it's hard to tell why the call quality is poor - is it my connection, your connection, or the service's fault? Can I shoot you an email when we get a beta version of that indicator working? I'd love to get you…
Are you collecting network information/statistics from both sides of the call? That may assist in troubleshooting.
Re: Show HN: Awesometalk – Free video calling without the hassle
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks Roger -- we really want to create a connection quality indicator like you describe, kind of like the number of bars on your cell connection. One of our biggest frustrations with existing services is that it's hard to tell why the call quality is poor - is it my connection, your connection, or the service's fault? Can I shoot you an email when we get a beta version of that indicator working? I'd love to get you…
Are you collecting network information/statistics from both sides of the call? That may assist in troubleshooting.
We are collecting anonymous data about the network, browser, etc. and tying it back to core metrics like call length, but there's always more we can do. I'm really hoping that more browsers start to support the network information API natively too: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/WebAPI/Network_Info...
Re: Show HN: Awesometalk – Free video calling without the hassle
#14Screenshare pls
Re: Show HN: Awesometalk – Free video calling without the hassle
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right now they're very similar, but we're working on getting Awesometalk onto more platforms than just the web. We want you to be able to send anyone an Awesometalk link, and no matter what device they're using, have a conversation.
Isn't that exactly what the web is good at though? Cross-platform? Right now I can send a friend an appear.in link and they can open it on their Android device and join the chat. I don't think Safari on iOS has WebRTC support yet, but I can't imagine that they're not working on it.
Don't know if the Safari team is working on it, but we are ;) https://twitter.com/appear_in/status/440485480723787777
(I'm Product manager of appear.in)
Re: Show HN: Awesometalk – Free video calling without the hassle
#16Awesome! I just tried it from a university campus to a business ISP (both very high bandwidth) and the quality was crystal-clear.
Two immediate requests:
1) Screen sharing
2) Group chats
Definitely loving that there's no other software or installations required. Looking forward to its further development.
(Edit: Already got an email from the developers, and I understand the security limitations of easy screen sharing, so I guess just do what is possible; I'm not asking for the impossible. Just easier than installing some full-blown software, if possible, would be great.)
Re: Show HN: Awesometalk – Free video calling without the hassle
#17This only seems to work for two people at the moment (i.e. no group calls), but for that use case, it seems promising.
As it happens, for the past few days I've been trying out a lot of tools for online video/audio conferencing, and made a summary of their features here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1C1gAWPBmAWsQEo78ysds... (I didn't include Awesometalk because I'm only looking for group meeting tools, not one-to-one video chat)
Re: Show HN: Awesometalk – Free video calling without the hassle
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Skype I have the option to show call technical info turned on. It is immensely helpful since it shows continually updated values for latency, packet loss (in both directions), codec in use, bitrates etc. From that I can easily tell what the issues are (latency spikes vs packet loss are hard to distinguish due to the same symptoms). That isn't helpful for the masses, but you can display some sort of connection qual…
Thanks Roger -- we really want to create a connection quality indicator like you describe, kind of like the number of bars on your cell connection. One of our biggest frustrations with existing services is that it's hard to tell why the call quality is poor - is it my connection, your connection, or the service's fault? Can I shoot you an email when we get a beta version of that indicator working? I'd love to get you…
> Can I shoot you an email when we get a beta version of that indicator working?
Sure.
Re: Show HN: Awesometalk – Free video calling without the hassle
#19How is this different than https://appear.in/ ?
Appear.in was incredibly convenient when I tried it, but it used an insane amount of CPU or GPU power (Firefox Linux on a 2012 Macbook Pro), causing my laptop fans to spin up to full speed. The fan noise became unbearable for the other participants in the conversation.