Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Launch HN: Sidekick (YC S20) – A hardware device to connect remote teams

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 234 posts

Re: Launch HN: Sidekick (YC S20) – A hardware device to connect remote teams

#51

Post by achen187 »

awongh wrote: post #42

I immediately saw what needs this fills, that for remote work we need a kind of digital presence somewhere between zoom video conference, which demands everyone’s full attention, and is either presentational or one on one, and slack, which feels too asynchronous and formal. Like others i’m not convinced that the answer is another screen or if it’s some other kind of in between semi passive experience. Once it disappe…

Thanks for the feedback and it's awesome to hear that you experience the problem we're trying to solve.

From our early users, the screen is awesome - it's the closest thing that exists to sitting in the same room.

The idea of another way to simulate "semi-passive experience" is really interesting. We'll definitely keep it in mind!

Re: Launch HN: Sidekick (YC S20) – A hardware device to connect remote teams

#52

Post by achen187 »

quartz wrote: post #43

Finally someone built this! I HATE juggling video windows vs. application windows. 2 Questions: - Can I still share my screen? - Your "How it Works" section says $50/user/month but your "Get the Band Back Together" section says $25/user/month. Then the titlebar says "$25/user/month until august 1st". So.... is it $25/user/month in July and then goes up?

- Can I still share my screen? We recommend all our customers to try using https://screen.so/ It's awesome, in slack you type /screen and immediately start a multiplayer screen share. Here's a video fo how it works: https://www.loom.com/share/f7941a18a501424db3656b4603cb1179

- Regarding pricing, it's $25/user/month if you sign up before August 1st and that price is locked in for life. (The $50 is a mistake, and we're changing it right now)

Re: Launch HN: Sidekick (YC S20) – A hardware device to connect remote teams

#53

Post by achen187 »

crusso wrote: post #27

This is a great idea for a product. I have worked remotely for the past ten years and not having easy interactions with team members has always been a problem. Lately, I've had a laptop in my office's cube with Skype and VNC set up so I can connect any time I want and leave myself virtually present for hours at a time. I like it. I'm sure that a dedicated product could offer more features and efficiencies than I have…

Whoa, that's an awesome setup. Do you still have this or is your office closed?

Re: Launch HN: Sidekick (YC S20) – A hardware device to connect remote teams

#54

Post by hzuo »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #33

This is a good idea! Latency can be a big pain for web conferencing. Are the video streams sent directly to the other clients, or are they relayed through a central server?

Thanks and totally agree - especially since we're trying to enable frictionless communication, we knew we had to minimize latency from the get-go.

We use the standard WebRTC model where 1:1 Sidekicks are peer-to-peer (video streams sent directly to other clients), and 3+ Sidekicks go through SFUs that we host on AWS. These SFUs deployed all around in the world (in every major AWS region), and we assign Sidekicks to the SFU nearest to everyone on their team.

Internally the metric we aim for is to keep the end-to-end latency under 200ms.

Re: Launch HN: Sidekick (YC S20) – A hardware device to connect remote teams

#55

Post by achen187 »

slykar wrote: post #15

Looks like it's still an early stage. Nice to see that it has something I wanted to implement in Jitsi Meet - "select person to talk". Other than that I don't see the appeal other than the subscription model for the hardware if you are an employer. Would be nice to see something like Facebook's Portal, so that it could be also placed in bigger rooms, where it could follow the speaker.

Following the speaker is a really cool feature, and is something we might get to at some point.

Sidekick is built to be always-on so teammates can feel like they're in the same room. Many teams we spoke to have tried doing it with Zoom or Jitsi, but they all decay because it's really hard to get people in the room, at the same time. Sidekick's features try to maximize the chances that you're not in the room alone.

Re: Launch HN: Sidekick (YC S20) – A hardware device to connect remote teams

#56

Post by noodle »

codeviking wrote: post #14

This feels like bit of a knee-jerk reaction to the sudden shift towards remote only work. Don't get me wrong, I like the premise as I've definitely felt disconnected from my team recently, but I don't think this quite solves the problem. If it did we'd just sit in a Google Hangout meeting all day. We (and I imagine a lot of others) have already tried this and it didn't work. No one can really put their finger on why,…

> This feels like bit of a knee-jerk reaction to the sudden shift towards remote only work.

This isn't a super new thing, though. There have been a number of companies in the past 5-10 years that offered similar functionality without the hook of having a separate device (Sqwiggle, pukkateam, sneek, etc).

Re: Launch HN: Sidekick (YC S20) – A hardware device to connect remote teams

#57

Post by achen187 »

edoceo wrote: post #26

I don't get it. HWe use an RTC room on existing PC, with an alert and PTT mode. so we have always on listen-audio. Its like a web-based walkie-talkie (remember Nextel?) It's rigged to our Mattermost too Ours cost like $500 to build - this would cost us over $500 every two months at discount price.

Whoa that's a super cool setup, and one I haven't seen before. I'd love to learn more if you have a writeup anywhere?

And how many teammates do you have? It seems like 10?

Re: Launch HN: Sidekick (YC S20) – A hardware device to connect remote teams

#58

Post by giarc »

ahstilde wrote: post #24

I think everyone focusing on the "always on" aspect is missing the point. This is a standalone device which takes care of a major part of the headache in transitioning to remote work -- a second monitor and webcam, a whiteboarding device, and a "who's online for me to talk to" visibility feature. It's like paying $25 to bring the social experience of an office to your remote work environment without worrying about te…

"camera off but still pingable"

That's called Facetime'ing someone.

Re: Launch HN: Sidekick (YC S20) – A hardware device to connect remote teams

#59

Post by volkk »

ahstilde wrote: post #24

I think everyone focusing on the "always on" aspect is missing the point. This is a standalone device which takes care of a major part of the headache in transitioning to remote work -- a second monitor and webcam, a whiteboarding device, and a "who's online for me to talk to" visibility feature. It's like paying $25 to bring the social experience of an office to your remote work environment without worrying about te…

> The only feature I'd like to see is a "camera off but still pingable" mode

i think that's called a slack message, or maybe email.

Re: Launch HN: Sidekick (YC S20) – A hardware device to connect remote teams

#60

Post by ipsum2 »

achen187 wrote: post #50
rajeshamara wrote: post #40

I think zoom is already getting into similar. Also feel pricing is a bit on expensive side for what you are providing

Zoom and Facebook Portal are still just trying to make meetings marginally better with a dedicated device. We're going after a different niche where teams need to actually feel like they're in the same room with an always-on call.

So just have an always on meeting using Zoom/Portal. How is that any different?
Post reply on HN