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Comment by codeviking | Hacker News Reader

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, we just know something was still missing.

I think it has to do with the medium. Maybe the answer involves coming up with some sort experience that doesn't feel as dry and disconnected as video conferencing. This is where the idea of course becomes hand wavy -- but maybe it involves some use of AR, or a projector -- who knows.

If I were in your shoes I'd be thinking about a game-changer, instead of an incremental enhancement of video conferencing. Maybe that's bad advice, but I know I don't find this offering terribly compelling.

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I've noticed that with my skype-to-the-office setup where I leave it on, the resource use (mostly bandwidth) bugs me in the back of my mind.

That makes the experience a little uncomfortable as an always-on thing.

I'd definitely like to know that resource use was minimal when I wasn't in a conversation or actively engaged with the system.

I think that having the system as an appliance is a plus and makes it more comfortable to just leave on - versus something running in a window on a screen from my work laptop.

We're still really early on, so we're also trying to figure out what that missing "something" is. We're totally in the same boat.

From interviews, our theory is that it's because most of the time, the Hangouts all day solution decays because people have too many experiences being alone in the room.

Again still really early, so we're also figuring it out but thanks for the data point!

Gotcha. Makes sense.

Good luck :). I'll stay dialed in and genuinely hope y'all knock it out of the park so I can reconnect with my colleagues!

> 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).

This is one of the best points made. I felt the same way in HN being far too harsh. Seeing other apps along the same connectedness theme gives a good perspective.

I had only tried Pragli and it is underwhelming. Too much cpu usage even after they removed snapshots of you. The Spotify integration is te one nice feature none of the others have.

Thanks for the names of apps. Going to try the latter two.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to be harsh.

By "knee-jerk" I didn't mean new, but meant that it lacked depth. Hopefully my elaboration clarified that I think the company is on the right track, just that they need to go a bit further and extend beyond what traditional video conferencing already (kind of) offers.

They're doing that, and they're a startup -- so I know they're starting lean and that they'll learn, change and add bells and whistles as time goes. This is the right way to do things :).

Sorry I wasn’t meaning you specifically or at all for my comment. I don’t remember now who I was thinking of. But me making someone else feel bad wouldn’t make sense with being unhappy with “harshness”.

Thanks for your clarification and overall I agree with your original issue.

I have a small but growing community of people from before corona with the center piece being a 24/7 Zoom meeting room and yeah it has never felt fully right. It still works out, but it does feel as if there’s something off.

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