You’re muted – or are you? Videoconferencing apps may listen when mic is off
1–10 of 353 posts
Re: You’re muted – or are you? Videoconferencing apps may listen when mic is off
#2Google Meet at least it's very obvious to tell they do this because if you talk while muted, they will show a pop-up saying that you're talking but you're muted.
Whether this functionality is justification for more nefarious data usage remains to be seen.
Re: You’re muted – or are you? Videoconferencing apps may listen when mic is off
#3I can't speak to all videoconferencing software, but Zoom does this to throw up a "Hey nobody can hear you, did you mean to unmute?" banner
Re: You’re muted – or are you? Videoconferencing apps may listen when mic is off
#4Am I the only one who actually likes this feature?
Zoom prints out a huge full screen notification of "you are muted press X+Y to unmute". Very rarely people speak on Zoom while they are muted.
Now if someone would add the reverse of "your mic seems to be sending nonsense crap and everyone can hear it, maybe you should mute yourself?"
Re: You’re muted – or are you? Videoconferencing apps may listen when mic is off
#5Google Meet at least it's very obvious to tell they do this because if you talk while muted, they will show a pop-up saying that you're talking but you're muted. Whether this functionality is justification for more nefarious data usage remains to be seen.
I have to cough a lot, so I have a headset with a flip-to-mute mic.
As a result, I don't generally use in-software mute effects. :/
Re: You’re muted – or are you? Videoconferencing apps may listen when mic is off
#6I can't speak to all videoconferencing software, but Zoom does this to throw up a "Hey nobody can hear you, did you mean to unmute?" banner
What about those cases where you wish you'd been muted?
"Hey everyone can hear you, did you want me to erase the last 5 seconds from their memory?" would be a nice feature.
Facepalm.
Re: You’re muted – or are you? Videoconferencing apps may listen when mic is off
#7Have a mute button on your microphone and cover for your camera. Something you can see is engaged (e.g. a light goes on/off).
Some laptops now have switches that disconnect them from USB... which can be a different kind of pain, if there are other devices that may be connected to.
Re: You’re muted – or are you? Videoconferencing apps may listen when mic is off
#8Tell me you don't understand how things work without telling me don't understand how things work. /s
All the apps tell you that you are muted when you are trying to talk while muted. How do they think they do that?
Re: You’re muted – or are you? Videoconferencing apps may listen when mic is off
#9If I could pick one hardware feature that I'd love on all my i-devices and laptops, it'd be physical shut-off switches for the mic and camera(s). Or, in the camera's case, maybe a cover, since that way you're less likely to have the camera "turned on" without realizing it.
[EDIT] and by "physical" I mean "actually breaks a circuit when off"
Re: You’re muted – or are you? Videoconferencing apps may listen when mic is off
#10I feel like they're trying to make an insidious suggestion about the usage of these. IMO, there's likely a good reason - user experience.
At a hardware level, grabbing the microphone can take time. Even worse that timing is inconsistent across devices, workloads, etc. That leads to a bad experience when unmuting and needing to delay your commentary. The solution to this is to keep the microphone on, but mute at a software level. This way the mic is always hot and ready to relay audio as fast as the software can switch.
I'd be somewhat willing to bet continue to stream audio is also a quality assurance mechanism. Some networks will shape traffic according to load. A quick jump in bandwidth can introduce unexpected jitter and latency. By continuing to stream audio (but not necessarily process or re-transmit), video conferencing can better ensure an un-interupted experience.
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With that being said, if you really care about privacy, consider getting a hardware mute microphone.