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Ben Tossell

Slack Video Calls - Talking face-to-face with your team is just one click away

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Ryan Hoover
Eager to try this out. We've been long time fans of Zoom.us, great for larger distributed teams. Slack Video Calls makes a ton of sense but it's already easy enough to type "/hangout" in Slack to start a Google Hangout. Other than being built-in to the platform, what additional value does this provide?
Ben Tossell
Hunter
@rrhoover Hangouts = cut out all the time... (for me at least)
Jason Weingardt
@rrhoover uhhh Ryan have you seen the custom props? 🤔
Scott Buscemi
@bentossell @rrhoover Agreed, reliability would be a big one for me. Seems like Hangouts never picks up the right audio inputs every time. However, Hangouts will still be the best option when talking with people outside of your team.
Ben Tossell
Hunter
@scottbuscemi @rrhoover yeh theres still the outside of your group issue... but I guess Slack aren't looking at that side of things anyway!
Matt Gillespie
@rrhoover Going right in with the tough questions. I like it. Coming from a team that holds 50-60 person calls a couple times a week, I'd love to see how Slack video performs against our current favorite, Zoom.us. I can't imagine it'd be easy to toss Zoom on the pile of runner-up video services with the rest of them. I'd love to be wrong, though.
Ben Tossell
Hunter
Slack now has one-to-one and group video calling! Obviously: Video calling also includes the calls emoji response feature, so without having to unmute, you can use a ✋ to ask a question, add a 👍 to show your approval, or 🙇 to thank people for a job well done. These reactions, along with a few others, will display briefly over your video and play a subtle sound. You can also get custom props TBH I've always struggled having a good experience with Google Hangouts We've been using Zoom for a while and that was pretty good - While on Slack already, this could change the game 🙌
Derek Nuzum
@bentossell The props are simply amazing! That being said, the feature built into an existing platform already in use is going to be huge for gaining marketshare. We've also used Zoom, Skype, and most recently UberConference for when latency is an issue to separate out voice/video. Going to be really nice for internal communications. Would be cool to see an external temporary link for clients.
Daniel Oviedo
@bentossell all that we need now is the ability to share screens without using third parties, and everything will be handled through slack!
Rebecca
@daniel_oviedo We love screenhero, hopefully slack will integrate it into their product soon. The acquisition was a while ago now.
Matt Nicolae
This is a great addition and I'm excited, but I can't help but be a bit annoyed. Slack purchased Screenhero almost TWO years ago with the notion of implementation. In that time they've released both calls and video chat, with screen sharing being the last addition trudging behind the pack. Once screen sharing (with a screenhero level of ability) is on slack, it's a done game.
Jahanzeb Sherwani
Top Product
Maker
@mattnicolae Screenhero co-founder here. When we joined Slack, we publicly stated that our goals were to add voice, video and screen sharing, and we've now launched both voice and video calls. Screen sharing is something we are working on. Stay tuned...
Saul Fleischman
@mattnicolae Just integrate Google+. Free videocalls with native screenshare, archivable chat. And no need to pay for paid Slack.
Josh Pigford
Welp, there goes all the other team video chat service. I've been waiting my entire life for this.
Niv Dror
Glorious beard.
Chris Luquetta-Fish
Top Product
Maker
@nivo0o0 Thanks, photoshop is the best
Paul Shustak
Awesome addition to Slack. We use both Slack and hangouts and would love to settle on one platform. But does Slack have screen sharing?
Chris Luquetta-Fish
Top Product
Maker
@paul_shustak Working on it! :-)
Rick Bannerman
@one16th @paul_shustak Great! I've been waiting to hear more about this since you guys acquired Schreenhero!
Jack Dweck
RIP Google Hangouts 👻
Reony T
I've been using appear.in, super nice and stable app. But to use one less app is always welcoming 😁
Andreas Duess
@megaroeny We're also super happy appear.in users. We got a couple of rooms locked down with appear.in, cant see ourselves change from that, especially with clients.
Reony T
@andreasduess well the cool things is, based on their docs, is that you can still choose your third party app to launch by default! 😮
Lior Romanowsky
Finally. I hope the video quality will be better. Paid level only?
Nathan Kontny
@liorowsky I'm on paid and I still don't see it. Maybe it's still being beta tested?
Nami Sung
Top Product
@natekontny @liorowsky We are rolling out video calls over the next few days! Keep an eye out!
Nami Sung
Top Product
@liorowsky Free teams will be able to make one-on-one video calls!
Cal Bachand
Does this mean we can finally screen share now too?
Gilles Bertaux
@calbachand Not without an extension IMO since the Slack app is a Chromium base. So maybe on the webapp only on Chrome?
Jahanzeb Sherwani
Top Product
Maker
@gillesbertaux @calbachand Stay tuned for some exciting stuff in the coming months...
John Eberly
Nice work! Wishlist: an API for voice/video (for use in Chatlio) and screensharing.
Angus
Bye bye Zoom. Bye bye Hangouts. Bye bye Skype. Not sorry.
Thomas Geselle
How does the video quality is compared to Skype and Hangout?
Kourosh Behnam
@tgeselle I would say video quality is better on Skype than hangouts and Slack but for connectivity, Slack has been the best. I would love my broader company to use Slack but there would be a steep learning curve for some people in my company.
Aleksandra
Finally! We've been really waiting for this, especially when part of the team is remote. Looks like now we can do ALL our communication in Slack. I wonder do they allow screen sharing? Pretty important feature for team calls.
Davide Santangelo
better than Pied Piper (http://www.piedpiper.com) ? :D
Arlo Gilbert
This product isn't released yet... Why is it on product hunt?
Saul Fleischman
Slack is essential for startup teams, but we're all nickel and dimed to death. We learn to discern. Slack: unlimited users to a team, free. Archive (not needed) and integrations beyond the free limit on the paid plans. Slack native video calls requires at least the cheaper of paid Slack. For us, that would be $424/month. Or, just use the Google Hangouts integration, type /hangout to do a videocall with screensharing (and free text chat archive). Hangouts go to ten people. Slack videocalls go to 15. Fine. $5/month for one person to have a Google Business account and your Google Hangouts now go to 15. Am I missing something? ZERO vs. $424/month, folks.
Saul Fleischman
@jollymonatx thanks. It's mind-blowing to me how my funded startup friends are quick to throw money to the wind when there are alternatives that are far cheaper or free.
michael j lambie
omg finally! Yay ! ! !
Colin Jones
Been waiting for this ever since Slack rolled out Calls. Thanks guys! I spend so much time on Slack and Google Hangouts and this will make my life so much easier!
Duygu Aksoy
Finally :D