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

news.ycombinator.com

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

#191

Post by Terretta »

achen187 wrote: post #146
Terretta wrote: post #142

The only question I have is how well it scales. The writeup above keeps talking about a “room” but the website features only person-to-person with the exception of the illustration of muting which shows the guitarist and hand-clapper as two ‘windows’. So two people cuts the 1080p (pretty low res) screen in half. What about 10 people, or 25? The answer is not in your FAQ: Q. How many Sidekicks can be connected on a te…

That's great feedback. Honestly, we haven't set up a team larger than 5 at this point. However, I also believe that 3-5 is roughly the amount of people who you actually work really closely with. These units are probably the right grouping for who is in one room. There is no actual max number, but I do think the design and the use case would fall apart right now. But there's some things we're thinking about like separ…

> I believe that 3-5 is roughly the amount of people...right grouping for one room

Isaac Asimov commented maximum creativity is 3-5, but a variety of firms have found the optimal team size is a “two pizza team” (6 to 10, typically 8).

Google the term, you get tons of discussion from blogs to journalism, that can lead you to papers:

http://blog.idonethis.com/two-pizza-team/

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/24/the-two-p...

In any case, what pattern does the screen divide into for 5? Of course there is a max number, arguably the number of individual pixels if you wanted each participant’s presence indicated by a single dot, but the practical limit is much lower. How many can you do? Why not test more?

Currently Teams on iPad is 9, the increase from 4 was news:

https://winbuzzer.com/2020/04/14/microsoft-teams-is-doubling...

Zoom is 42, so Teams plans 49 shortly:

https://venturebeat.com/2020/06/15/microsoft-teams-zoom-49-v...

A 7x7 grid on an iPad Pro works out to something like 390x292, well above the 320x240 that was a fine streaming video size back in the day.

PS. If you haven’t done more than 5, say so in the FAQ.

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

#193

Post by rp1229 »

ponker wrote: post #145
sonicggg wrote: post #46

For the sake of mental health and privacy, I hope this product crashes and burns.

For the sake of my mental health I hope it succeeds. My mental health has been in severe jeopardy just being in a room talking to coworkers just during specific topic-oriented meetings.

What stops you from talking to your coworkers casually using any other method? Half my chats are casual conversations, some of which will turn to a call if its specific topic-oriented.

I think looking for a product to solve this may not be the most efficient way to help the mental state. In fact, reaching out to more people into the company is easier than ever now, just a message away.

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

#194

Post by xwdv »

blhack wrote: post #183

Why is everybody in here being such an asshole to this company? Has the HN culture seriously changed this much? Is the lockdown just pickling everybody's minds? They're trying something. If you don't like it, give constructive criticism, but this hostility is unhelpful and unwelcome. >Why is it a Samsung device? I worked on a startup which was a video chat project similar to this with a different target. We also used…

I wasn’t going to say anything but I got triggered by your last paragraph.

I don’t come to HN to read glowing reviews of barely launched startups. There’s plenty of that out there if you’re looking for it and it all sounds the same anyway. Success porn crap.

I come to HN to see if other people like me think something is a piece of shit or if it’s actually decent, and why.

If everything that comes through here got two thumbs up HN would cease to be a reliable indicator of things worth my time or money.

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

#195

Post by ponker »

rp1229 wrote: post #193
ponker wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the sake of my mental health I hope it succeeds. My mental health has been in severe jeopardy just being in a room talking to coworkers just during specific topic-oriented meetings.

What stops you from talking to your coworkers casually using any other method? Half my chats are casual conversations, some of which will turn to a call if its specific topic-oriented. I think looking for a product to solve this may not be the most efficient way to help the mental state. In fact, reaching out to more people into the company is easier than ever now, just a message away.

I don’t want to talk to them I just want to feel like someone is in the room.

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

#196

Post by koopuluri »

This is beautiful. I thrive on impromptu social interactions during the work day, and would love to have a system that facilitates and encourages it with teammates that are open to it.

I love the secondary, single-purpose device approach. It relieves the mental strain of figuring out this set up... happy to pay a premium to be connected with my team on one tap.

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

#197

Post by rookhack »

volkk wrote: post #188
SamBam wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the difference is that "pingable" means you are happy to have someone ping you. My understanding is that camera on = talk to me at any time. And maybe some users would still like that openness, without worrying if someone is watching them pick their nose. A Slack message would start with "Hey, can we connect at some point..."

depends on how you use slack. if youre using it to its highest potential, people are setting their slack statuses appropriately and you can tell who is in the zone vs not, etc. i really think a lot of this stuff is a process problem. the tools are all there

I’m working on a tool to make that super easy (holopod.com).

We think we can solve for the impromptu conversations with a specified custom status that folks can trigger when open to a conversation (Eg. Water cooler, coffee break, etc).

Would love any feedback!

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

#198

Post by cel1ne »

blhack wrote: post #183

Why is everybody in here being such an asshole to this company? Has the HN culture seriously changed this much? Is the lockdown just pickling everybody's minds? They're trying something. If you don't like it, give constructive criticism, but this hostility is unhelpful and unwelcome. >Why is it a Samsung device? I worked on a startup which was a video chat project similar to this with a different target. We also used…

Very subjective, but HNs comment culture went down in the last 1 or 2 years or so. (Reddit-style discussions, jokes etc. seem to be more common now)

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

#199

Post by throwaway858915 »

Three of the cofounders are from Palantir. Privacy is not mentioned as a concern in the original post.

Are we expected to believe this is really a product to keep people connected, or is this another big data weapon for the corporate mass surveillance arsenal? And what's the probability that data may end up in China, like with Zoom?

> If you don't really want to talk to your team during the day, Sidekick probably isn't a great fit.

Wow, thunderstruck.

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

#200

Post by thomastraum »

this is obviously a good idea. I was so close to trying to hack something together such as this. the naming could be way better, you missed an opportunity on labeling the feeling you are looking for, you should use presence or something similar
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