
Ask HN: Remote Developers, what tools/apps you wish you had? [for product idea] - nanospeck
Remote jobs are getting really popular now, and I&#x27;m curious to know about the potential for new products&#x2F;apps for remote workers. E.g. nomadlist 
If you are a remote developer, do you have any particular tool&#x2F;app&#x2F;website that you wish existed and  would make your life easier?
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tabeth
Instant Ping (particularly for teams where most people are on premise):

1\. You have a computer (the Instant Pinger) setup. All it is is a monitor
with a webcam and a faster internet connection, in addition to a small
computer that can run the Instant Pinger and a keyboard, with super high
quality mic.

2\. When anyone (presumably an employee) sits in front of the Instant Pinger
they're instantly, and automatically connected to you. You will immediately
appear on the monitor and they will appear on yours. Text, video, and screen
sharing will activated from your end to the monitor.

3\. When they leave the connection immediately closes. There's no need to
press disconnect for you are always "connected" to begin with.

Why?

Many say the serendipity of the office is what allows great ideas to spread.
The Instant Pinger recreates this with an always on connection, and "presence
to talk" messaging. A light could even be installed on the remote monitor to
indicate whether or not the local (really remote) user is on their desk, or
not.

~~~
Emc2fma
I could see this getting really annoying really fast.

~~~
MrTortoise
Yeah completely destroys the fact that you often choose not to disturb someone
of they are busy

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sdtsui
Hands down, screen-sharing software that "just works" would be awesome. Our
team uses Screenhero over hangouts, and even when everyone has rock-solid
internet there are connection/stability issues. Pretty much anything that can
help remote teams collaborate effectively is great. If it was quantifiably
better (fewer dropped calls, required restarts), we'd pay anywhere from
$10-$100/user/mo. We're an dev team of 10-20 and use a paid Slack channel. We
like InVision's new Inspect feature. We (the eng team) also do a lot of
whiteboarding on Sketch.

I've done more lifetime remote dev work than onsite work. Happy to answer more
detailed questions if you're interested. Have fun!

~~~
mod
What's wrong with the normal screenshare on hangouts?

My company uses that fairly extensively with no issues.

~~~
sdtsui
Interesting. Is your entire company distributed, or is there the option to
have some face-to-face collaboration?

I haven't worked on a team where everyone was happy with hangouts. Yeah, maybe
a few people go "eh, works, no major issues", but that's different from "we
like using this software and increases our productivity". There's always some
humor/a running joke when someone's sound dies, or we need to restart the
call.

I also haven't observed any distributed company in my network where they had
>15 engineers and haven't invested in some paid software with collaboration
features beyond hangouts: Zoom, Bluejeans, Screenhero (if a face-to-face video
isn't needed, or rarely). One example, pairing: being able to "drive" your
coworker's screen for a few minutes without no setup is better than Floobits.
Hangouts does not allow this. I believe on some browsers you also can't see
the sharer's mouse.

Does that answer your question? Defnitely curious, to learn of other remote
teams' tools, and what works for them. I'd love to hear more about what your
workflow is like and what you like about it.

~~~
mod
We have offices in different regions and some workers are fully remote (and
others are sometimes-work-from-home).

Our hangout usage is mostly for meetings, which are just check-ins and
planning meetings. Typically during the course of a meeting several people
will briefly screenshare what they're working on, and a typical meeting
involves multiple time-zones and states (although we're all US-based).

Sometimes pairing is done using hangouts, which isn't the best solution, but
also isn't overly inhibiting. We are a small company, but > 15 developers.

I've never wanted to drive the coworker's screen, however I could see how that
could be useful in many cases.

I'm not particularly thrilled with hangouts, in the same way I'm not
particularly thrilled with, say, ssh--but it has always gotten the job done
and allowed me to share my screen with others painlessly.

~~~
sdtsui
Neat-o, thanks for sharing! I can see why you'd be happy with hangouts, it
does get the job done.

For us, where everyone is remote (I haven't seen my team's faces for over 6
months), the marginal utility of a tool's delightfulness/stability is quite
high. Maybe we're just picky. :)

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sscarduzio
3 months in into a SE Asia digital nomad adventure here. Please provide:

Predictably priced universal 4G plan that bills to my bank account.

Biometric border control (leave passport at home)

Clean, high quality scooter helmets rental (I'd pay premium for this)

Bitcoin ATM to avoid local banks high fees (i.e. Thailand and Philippines ATMs
charge foreign cards a lot)

Plane-UberPool for small charter flights

~~~
oliv__
I don't get why everyone who goes the "digital nomad" route ends up in SE
Asia. God it's becoming painful at this point.

Is the world not big enough? Can people not go their own ways?

~~~
BjoernKW
SE Asia is a rather big place but I suppose it's a combination of:

\- low cost of living

\- pleasant climate

\- decent infrastructure

\- interesting, diverse culture

\- being generally welcoming to foreigners (to those with somewhat big pockets
at least)

You get some of those traits in many other non-South-East-Asian countries as
well but all of them combined is a pretty rare occurrence.

~~~
victorhn
Pretty much most of Latin America satisfies all of this. I wonder why it is
not more popular among nomads, maybe because fame of high rates of crime?

~~~
wprapido
latin america has terrible crime rates. yet, there are decent digital nomad
communities in mexico, colombia and argentina

~~~
mod
The digital community was lacking, but I spent time in Costa Rica and found it
very safe, inviting, and beautiful.

I was in a very small surf town on the Pacific coast with a strong ex-pat
presence.

~~~
wprapido
central america has entirely different vibe, for worse. yeah, costa rica
seemed safe though, but not quite so other central american countries

