Congrats on the launch, bernat!
Launch HN: Tandem (YC S19) – A Virtual Office for Remote Teams
11–20 of 80 posts
Re: Launch HN: Tandem (YC S19) – A Virtual Office for Remote Teams
#12So I am very curious to try this. But I'm still having trouble grokking what the features are.
If there were a video, that would be really helpful.
I don't want just to add it to my Slack without knowing what's going to happen.
Re: Launch HN: Tandem (YC S19) – A Virtual Office for Remote Teams
#13Neat! Some questions on the "WhatApp" feature: 1) What do you mean by "a select set of integrated apps"? 2) Can the user tailor which app names are shared vs. those they prefer to keep private? 3) Did earlier prototypes try a generic approach for ID, e.g. capturing hWND of the focused window and querying it's class, title, executable name, etc? Do Mac/Linux have analogous facilities for window identification? 4) Was…
Great questions!
1) You can see the list here: https://tandem.chat/integrations We add new products by request, but we don't plan to add email and social networking sites :)
2) Long term, we'd like to let users customize what apps and sites are shown for their team, but we haven't built that yet. Right now, you can just turn on app, app + url, or nothing.
3) We use system APIs for capturing window titles & executable names across Windows, Linux, and Mac. There's actually a node package for that called "active-win"
4) Yes! We have plans to open-source our browser reading logic. And I still haven't figured out how to read URLs in a generic way from Linux yet.
5) Not yet, but we're thinking about how to indicate to your team that you're in "deep work" based on how active you are (e.g. typing or mousing a lot). I switch between terminal, VS Code, and localhost all the time, so I understand!
6) Yes, we only check your active app on an interval to reduce our performance hit.
Long-term pricing is $10/active user/month, where active user is someone who does at least an hour of calls. Of course, we want to make sure it's valuable for you and your team first.
Re: Launch HN: Tandem (YC S19) – A Virtual Office for Remote Teams
#14So I am very curious to try this. But I'm still having trouble grokking what the features are. If there were a video, that would be really helpful. I don't want just to add it to my Slack without knowing what's going to happen.
That's a great idea. We'll create a video of us using it.
Also, you could try signing up with Google and create a personal team. Then, if you like it you can use Slack for your team.
Re: Launch HN: Tandem (YC S19) – A Virtual Office for Remote Teams
#15I installed the Mac app, it asked for Audio permissions but never video. So I can't share video yet.
Also you only see the video/audio selection dialog inside of an existing call or room. I think it would be easier if there was a top level way to configure those from the main preferences menu.
Thanks
Re: Launch HN: Tandem (YC S19) – A Virtual Office for Remote Teams
#16We use Tandem extensively: the killer feature is that during screenshares you get to control a pointer that the other person can see on their screen, which makes pair programming over Tandem feel basically the same as in person.
It was especially useful when onboarding a dev onto a new section of code that they had never touched before, and also when unblocking someone who was having trouble learning to use the IDE.
Re: Launch HN: Tandem (YC S19) – A Virtual Office for Remote Teams
#17I'm excited to see this problem being tackled. As I said previously, the biggest obstacle to reducing greenhouse gases isn't a political party. It's commuting. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20325660
Re: Launch HN: Tandem (YC S19) – A Virtual Office for Remote Teams
#18This is fantastic. Well done on launching. Can't wait to try it.
Re: Launch HN: Tandem (YC S19) – A Virtual Office for Remote Teams
#19We use Tandem extensively: the killer feature is that during screenshares you get to control a pointer that the other person can see on their screen, which makes pair programming over Tandem feel basically the same as in person. It was especially useful when onboarding a dev onto a new section of code that they had never touched before, and also when unblocking someone who was having trouble learning to use the IDE.
Well-said! Not sure who this is, but thank you!
Re: Launch HN: Tandem (YC S19) – A Virtual Office for Remote Teams
#20I was always intrigued with Sqwiggle, though I didn't have a chance to use it. I was sad to see they weren't able to make it.
One interesting feature they had was low-fi video (grainy black and white, very low framerate), with the same basic idea as knowing what app you are in: a chance to see whether you were at the computer, and maybe a little hint at your mental state, but maybe not too intrusive. But I don't know how it acted in practice. They had complete drop-in, but I like your one-sided-talk-first.
Another interesting feature might be something like a I'd-like-to-know-when-you-see-this-page. E.g., as a developer I might submit a PR, and I want to know when you start reviewing it. I'd "mark" the page somehow and it would be a little like having a watchword on Slack or IRC. It wouldn't have to be intrusive, as it could be as simple as a popup when the other person visits the page, telling them their coworker was interested when they started looking at it, and OK/cancel to inform them.