Ask HN: How Modern video conference software can lack push2talk esp. during WFH | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How Modern video conference software can lack push2talk esp. during WFH

6 pointstester348 comments

I find it pretty strange

For last like 12 years I've been using various VoIP software almost __every__ day to talk with people - 1 on 1 or in groups of made of 5/10/30 and so on

I've used Ventrilo, Mumble, TeamSpeak and nowadays Discord

but it always blows my mind that when I have to use Skype or MS Teams that they lack of this so __core__ feature

It is especially weird during WFH/Covid era where people are working with their families in the background because push-to-talk is basically great feature to allow you work comfortably while being on call with somebody without having to switch windows (alt tab) in order to mute yourself.

Gaming oriented voice software figured this probably like 18 years ago

Skype allows you to mute yourself, but doesn't let you change hotkey, so this is also weird because it's been already figured that e.g "MOUSE3" (Scroll) or other buttons on modern gaming mouses are way more effective to control talking because those particular hotkeys rarely make problems when using other software (web browser, IDE, games and so on)

So, why is that a thing? why would any voice software lack of this option?

Do people who create this kind of software never actually use it?

Or maybe there's other reason - they have never been in theirs 10's and had to use this kind of software to know, that enabling talking by voice is very bad when you're 12 years old sitting with friends on chat and then your parents enter your room :D

Videoconferencing never reached a mass appeal until recently. So there wasn't enough money in it to bother with advanced features for powerusers. Don't see why they don't add it now though... I guess they're probably inundated by feature requests though.

Jitsi[0] has that and it works really well. I have my microphone muted, when I want to speak, I maintain the "Space" key pushed and speak. It mutes back when I release it. If I want permanent unmute/mute, I press "m" like on YouTube.

[0]: https://meet.jit.si/

Also, I'm sorry for my snarky comment

>Do people who create this kind of software never actually use it?

I don't really believe that they dont use it, but I just feel weird that this particular feature hasn't been added because it is so good when you're using voice tool in place where you'd rather avoid switch often between mic being ON/OFF

Zoom for desktop has push to talk. See https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360000510003-Push-...

It's not an intuitive feature for people. With phones you just talk. Just talking is intuitive. People Don't use walkie talkies, they use phones.

I do agree, but this particular feature has very low entry level

you talk when you push button

The only thing is giving a hint for user to pick good hotkey

Of course I'm not saying that users should be forced to use this feature, it can be optional like every other voice software does it

Also the deactivate/activate microphone functionality is very close to a push-to-talk and for most "easier" to use since you have not to keep pushing a button while talking

That's very interesting point

In gaming you're generally using short messages unlike 30min long talk during video conf.

But there's also a lot of less formal calls happening where people just talk about code or something and it works similarly to gaming, so a lot of relatively short messages

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