(Subscribe to our Today's Cache newsletter for a quick snapshot of top 5 tech stories. Click here to subscribe for free.)
As the work culture shifted to work-from-home due to COVID-19, video calling apps took over in-person meeting. While people look to make an impact on desktop screens, it is essential to know how they are coming across on the video call.
Earlier, users could not tell whether their lighting was enough, audio seamless, or how near or far they were from the camera.
These are now solved for Google Meet users with the latest ‘green room’ feature. It will allow users to check their appearance, microphone, and audio before the video call starts.
Google says the new functionality can help users confirm that peripheral devices are properly configured and corrected. It can be used to check the network connectivity, noise cancellation effect, and adjust lighting to avoid dark or grainy video quality.
A warning will pop-up if there’s an issue with tips for common issues. This can include problems such as granting browser permission to use the microphone or camera, an unintentionally muted microphone, a secondary display monitor with a missing headphone or speaker connection.
When users prepare to join a meeting, they will see a small button below the video that reads, “Check your audio and video”. Once a user clicks on the option, they will see a pop-up window showing their video with speaker, and microphone options, similar to that in a video call.
The feature has started rolling out to Enterprise and premium customers while Google did not mention the availability to free and regular Google Meet users.
