Make video in Voice Rooms reliable enough to be useable
Me Too
Experienced some problems with voicerooms, similar to these comments in the Heart I found from a while back. Wondering if there’s some fixes on the horizon. Because in it’s current state it seems to unreliable due to bugs, which kinda makes it to big of a risk to actually attempt professional events/meetings.
— Test setups:
- iOS mobile app on iPad <-> Desktop app on MacBook Pro
- iOS Brave browsers on iPad <-> Desktop app on MacBook Pro
- iOS Safari browsers on iPad <-> Desktop app on MacBook Pro
- iOS Chrome browsers on iPad <-> Desktop app on MacBook Pro
— Results:
From the side of the MacBook everything seemed to work.
iPadOS, not so much …
- No outgoing video stream enabled on mobile app (https://heartbeat.canny.io/feature-requests/p/video-calls-on-mobile-app).
Video out from the browser on iPadOS did eventually work after a few tries but..
- No outgoing sound from iPadOS - both from HB app and from the different browsers we tried.
- Worse yet, at some point no connection to the voiceroom was even being made. https://heartbeat.canny.io/bug-report/p/voice-room-not-connecting-on-ipad-in-browser
- In some cases outgoing video worked, but had a very dark hue (on top of the mentioned lack of mic sound).
Then, after trying out Microsoft Teams as backup solution it suddenly worked with both audio & video streaming from the iPad side.
- After leaving the voice-room, my icon and the voice room remained visible/open (https://heartbeat.canny.io/feature-requests/p/leaving-a-voice-call-on-the-web-app-sometimes-doesnt-terminate-the-call)
— Needs
And while eventually we got something to work, this still leaves much to be desired:
- 99,9% succesrate of video and audio out
- 99,9% succesrate of connecting to voiceroom
- No more dark hue over the iPad video stream
And as a little bonus
- When screensharing, at least keep the presenter in front view in a little corner bubble.
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Mesh Admin
However, we have been experiencing critical issues with Voice Rooms. When someone starts screen sharing using the Heartbeat App on Windows, their voice disappears, and they are unable to navigate within the space. Even if they close the app and re-open it, they are still shown as active in the room. The only solution is to have a moderator manually kick them out of the room. Furthermore, when the audio device is selected, and the ‘Save’ button is clicked, it also activates the web camera. Although the video may not be seen, cameras with lights will indicate the active status, which is a serious privacy concern and increases internet traffic. Additionally, when someone joins a Voice Room from an iPhone a,nd a phone alarm starts, it disables the audio in the Heartbeat Voice Room, and they must leave the room and re-join to reactivate the audio. If these issues cannot be fixed quickly, please add an option to disable video and screen sharing for everyone at the admin level.
Mesh Admin
Heartbeat Virtual Rooms are built on Amazon Chime SDK which is using WebRTC (Voice and Video in the browser). Not all Browsers are currently supporting this technology. Amazon Chime has its own limitations.
Supported Platforms
💻 Desktop
• Windows - all key browsers (Chrome, Edge, Opera, Firefox) are supported.
• Linux - all key browsers (Chrome, Edge, Opera*, Firefox) are supported.
• MacOS - Safari browser is only supported.
Recommend using the latest version of the browsers listed above or instainstallingll a native app for Windows or macOS.
📟 Tablets
• Android - Mobile Browsers are not supported.
• iPadOS - Safari browser is only supported.
Heartbeat does not support mobile browsers on tablets. You can still log in, read the channels, and send messages but may experience various issues when joining virtual rooms.
We have tested different mobile browsers on iPad and found that only the Safari browser worked well with audio and video. The only limitation is that you cannot share the screen from iPad, but you can watch the screen of other people when they share.
If you choose to use a tablet, please note that when you join a virtual room, you may need to switch to the vertical view to see the call toolbar pop-up. Tap and hold the bar for two seconds, then move it up. Once done, you can switch your tablet back to the horizontal view.
📱 Smartphones
Mobile Browsers are not supported. Download the Heartbeat Chat app for iOS or Android and use Voice Rooms (video and content sharing are unavailable).
Diane SpaceWorker
I agree this is an emergency to fix this.
Misty Dorman
Way to document! I haven't tried the voice rooms to any extent yet, but I'd definitely like to use them once they're beefed up a bit more & I'm hearing that they're less buggy.