Google Meet has recently introduced a green room feature to the video-chat service, allowing users to take a quick glance at how they'll appear to others before joining a chat.
Google Meet's doing rather well for itself, with a big boost from the COVID-19 pandemic combined with it's free interface helping the app's downloads and userbase along. Unlike Zoom, another video conferencing application that gained significant popularity throughout 2020, Meet allows for an unlimited meeting time without the need of subscriptions and the like. This accessibility was widely utilized, as Meet crossed 50 million, and then 100 million downloads between May and July. Naturally, this meant that Google had their work cut out for them.
Developing Meet with new features further accentuates Google taking care of all of its properties (those that it hasn't axed and carted off to the burgeoning Graveyard). Meet seems to also be sort of a priority for Google, considering how the tech giant more or less incorporated Hangouts, a separate video chatting Google project, into it. The company's recently added a Troubleshooting menu that assess the app's running and offers feedback in real time performance. With such a focus on micro management having been established, the green room seems like the next logical step.
The tweaks to Meet's interface aren't anything special and are quite easy to use. Before joining a meeting, an option will be provided to users offering them to test their audio and video. Clicking on this button will lead users to the green room, which is almost identical to Zoom's pre-meeting audio and video chamber. One's video is featured at the front, while devices for both auditory and visual input can be changed below, allowing users to switch between their device's default hardware or relying on externally plugged items.
It should be clarified that while the green room does allow users to change their audio input device, it doesn't actually have the ability to check said audio built in yet. That particular tweak, while present in Zoom, might take some time before it reaches Google's pet project.
And that's all the news there is! Quite an underwhelming new detail to be added, considering how the green room has been present in Meet's competitor, Zoom, for quite a while. But these little functional updates go a long way in demonstrating the developers do care about their app and make sure that it offers the best possible user experience across its budding community.
Read next: Alphabet’s Annual Revenue Increases with YouTube and Google Search Bringing in the Most Money
Google Meet's doing rather well for itself, with a big boost from the COVID-19 pandemic combined with it's free interface helping the app's downloads and userbase along. Unlike Zoom, another video conferencing application that gained significant popularity throughout 2020, Meet allows for an unlimited meeting time without the need of subscriptions and the like. This accessibility was widely utilized, as Meet crossed 50 million, and then 100 million downloads between May and July. Naturally, this meant that Google had their work cut out for them.
Developing Meet with new features further accentuates Google taking care of all of its properties (those that it hasn't axed and carted off to the burgeoning Graveyard). Meet seems to also be sort of a priority for Google, considering how the tech giant more or less incorporated Hangouts, a separate video chatting Google project, into it. The company's recently added a Troubleshooting menu that assess the app's running and offers feedback in real time performance. With such a focus on micro management having been established, the green room seems like the next logical step.
The tweaks to Meet's interface aren't anything special and are quite easy to use. Before joining a meeting, an option will be provided to users offering them to test their audio and video. Clicking on this button will lead users to the green room, which is almost identical to Zoom's pre-meeting audio and video chamber. One's video is featured at the front, while devices for both auditory and visual input can be changed below, allowing users to switch between their device's default hardware or relying on externally plugged items.
It should be clarified that while the green room does allow users to change their audio input device, it doesn't actually have the ability to check said audio built in yet. That particular tweak, while present in Zoom, might take some time before it reaches Google's pet project.
And that's all the news there is! Quite an underwhelming new detail to be added, considering how the green room has been present in Meet's competitor, Zoom, for quite a while. But these little functional updates go a long way in demonstrating the developers do care about their app and make sure that it offers the best possible user experience across its budding community.
Read next: Alphabet’s Annual Revenue Increases with YouTube and Google Search Bringing in the Most Money
