
Building a walkie-talkie for remote work - dsaffy
https://pragli.com/blog/building-a-walkie-talkie-for-remote-work/
======
nnq
> quick, synchronous audio/video communication between teammates

..."kill it with fire" or other equivalent meme is the proper response to
this, no matter how wonderfully it is executed.

Really, what everyone needs is more _asynchronous communication_ and _less
attention draining_ and _less interruptions!_ This can only help _very small_
teams of extroverts with very-very-similar personalities work, it brings HELL
for everyone else! And creates a homogenous bubble by locking people with
different personalities out of the loop because they can't stand being in it.

 _We should put more time into bringing to the future ASYNCHRONOUS
communication tools that WORK FINE, like email, comments in project-
management-systems (eg. in Trello, Asana etc.)... we need more and better of
these! (And without compromising them by adding push-notification and crap
that makes them synchronous and attention grabbing.)_

~~~
IanCal
I'm not an extrovert and I'd like this for people asking me questions.

Want to disturb me for 2 minutes and ruin my concentration losing me half an
hour? If it's going to save you your afternoon - just do it. If you're
probably going to send me a message on slack or call me there anyway I'd find
this a lot less annoying. My goal should never be to get through the most work
_myself_ it's to move the company forwards. Having someone wait until tomorrow
to get their job done because I haven't _manually gone and checked my emails_
is a waste of company time.

Each to their own, and I don't think everyone would want to use something like
this, but don't assume that it's only small teams and very similar extroverts
that could benefit.

~~~
dwild
> If it's going to save you your afternoon - just do it.

That's the thing, will it actually be used like that? This feel so casual that
it doesn't feel like it has to be used in urgent matter only.

I guess the important thing isn't about the tools but mostly about the
training the user got around the tools. It's important to show what each one
is used for and in which context. It's so easy to just believe something is
more urgent than it is.

~~~
IanCal
I think the key thing is that tools won't _make_ people good at communicating.
That needs to happen as either a life lessons or job training.

Something tooling can do though is help give cues. If I'm wearing headphones
in an office frowning at the screen that's likely to change how people come up
to me compared to if I'm clearly having a break. When remote those aren't
around so you can't tell if I'm knee deep in diagrams and code or (say)
hitting unsubscribe from as many emails as I can. Making those things clear to
others is something tooling can improve on - but there's not much that can
stop people contacting you if they're determined.

------
tommoor
I have worked remotely for 10 years and raised VC funding for an idea very
similar to this in the past – we failed to build a sustainable business,
although the product did have a couple of hundred teams that swore by the
product.

In hindsight I believe it's because we were following the startup mythology of
"building a solution for the problem that you have" a little too closely. We
failed to realize that this is really a problem that only small startup teams
(usually a group of founders) have, as they need to keep in constant sync. It
doesn't really scale past that. As soon as you have any sort of mixture of
roles, personalities, or start to grow the team this is a communication method
that just inherently doesn't scale well.

I do believe there is something here for small groups of founders/friends
though, good luck!

~~~
jonas21
Oh, you built Sqwiggle! A couple of friends and I used to work together
remotely and we used it every day. It was awesome -- just the right balance
between being unobtrusive yet easy to have a quick discussion when needed. We
loved it so much, we even made a (much less-polished) clone after you shut
down so we could continue with the same workflow.

~~~
6510
I think many to one eventually becomes the real challenge. IOW how to get the
message to the lowest ranking person able to deal with the issue depending on
its content.

~~~
cryptica
I think it's still fine. My experience with many-to-many conversation is that
there is always someone whose computer is configured in such a way that it
causes everyone's speech to echo and makes it difficult to understand. With a
walkie-talkie approach, you bypass this problem entirely.

I think probably the commenter's startup failed because of competition from
big hyped, well funded players like Slack. Maybe when the hype settles, they
would have a chance. Timing is everything.

Only a handful of lucky few who are well connected don't have to worry about
competitors, everyone else needs to assume a competitive landscape full of
noise and misinformation.

------
jrd79
My business partner and I have been working remotely with each other for the
last 5 years, after a previous 7 years in a shared office.

To make it work, we bought dedicated iPads and put them on stands next to our
computer monitors on our desks. We start a FaceTime call at the beginning of
each day and literally leave it running all day. We mute when not actively
talking, so we can listen to music (and not listen to the other's keyboard
noises).

It is amazing. We always can see if the other one is present and/or busy on a
phone call. If I want to talk, I just unmute myself and start talking. It is
surprisingly similar to being in the same room as someone, without having to
agree on the playlist.

Obviously, this particular setup doesn't scale to larger teams, and it does
rely heavily on the very high quality and reliability of the audio and video
of FaceTime. But I'd recommend it highly for those in the same situation. Made
the cross-country move possible without destroying the business.

The dedicated device is key, so that it is always visible and doesn't take CPU
or screen real estate on your actual computer. And I can't emphasize enough
the importance of the high quality audio in FaceTime. We tried Squiggle back
in the day and the audio/video were just not good enough (and the freeze
frames were unflattering and distracting in a way that silent video is not,
strangely). It would be nice to unmute both sides at once, but FaceTime is
obviously not going to add that feature.

We thought about trying to make a product out of our insights/experiences but
concluded that it would be a bit like re-implementing MS Word to fix the find
dialog (if anyone remembers that issue back in the day).

~~~
overcast
That would require a very special, intimate relationship with someone to work.
There is no way I could have a random coworker/boss' mug staring at me all day
to my left. I wouldn't even want that with my wife/girlfriend.

~~~
jrd79
Do you have a private office at work? It is like sitting in the same pod as a
teammate.

But I agree you wouldn't want it with a wife and girlfriend. Could get awkward
with them both there.

~~~
poulsbohemian
>Do you have a private office at work? It is like sitting in the same pod as a
teammate.

And therein lies the problem: we should all have a private office wherever we
work, preferably without crappy lighting and with suitable heat / cold temps
and a comfortable chair and so forth. Instead we get open offices with the guy
three feet away feasting away on his boogers all day and the guy next to us
whose headphones leak noise everywhere.

This is such an issue for me that it is one of the top five reasons why I went
freelance - so that I can work in enjoyable professional settings with good
hardware.

------
dstaley
As a remote worker (and as someone who prefers remote work) I feel like this
is attempting to recreate the feeling of stopping by someone's desk in an
office. If that's what you want to recreate, I think this is an interesting
approach, but I've always felt that remote workers do so specifically because
they prefer not having in-office distractions. (Assuming those working
remotely prefer to do so of course. I realize that's not always the case.)

~~~
peteretep
> I've always felt that remote workers do so specifically because they prefer
> not having in-office distractions

Some, probably, but I miss that specific aspect about being in an office. I
like that I can temperature and sound control my office, and be somewhere
super sunny and cheap when the office is gloomy and expensive. I quite like
this idea.

------
ollifi
I've worked remote with a small team by having image of me on a monitor. I
heard what was talked around the monitor and could push-to-talk comment back.

It didn't feel distracting the way receiving a phone call while being remote
felt. It's clunky enough that people didn't come up unless they had to and I
still could keep up with the verbal information that was passed along with the
office gossip.

Some people get really bothered about this idea and probably if you are
working on independent tasks you don't need to be so connected. For tight
teamwork I found it to be the least bad option.

~~~
goatinaboat
This is very common in some industries to have always-on two-way screens
connected to workers in another office. A company called Tandberg was the main
maker of them. It’s owned by Cisco now but everyone still calls them
Tandbergs.

Typically you would have one at the end of a row of desks to “extend” that row
to another row physically located in another office and vice versa

~~~
jon-wood
I love Atlassian's implementation of this[1] where they installed "portals"
around their offices, connected to a counterpart in another office - if you
want to chat to someone you can walk over to the relevant portal and do so,
but because they're always on and in public places they also facilitate the
sort of spontaneous conversations you get when you bump into someone in the
kitchen while making a cup of coffee.

[1] [https://www.atlassian.com/blog/archives/developer-lives-
save...](https://www.atlassian.com/blog/archives/developer-lives-saved-with-
portal-device)

~~~
dsaffy
Genuinely curious: do people actually use these at Atlassian? In college we
had a portal to another college that looked very similar, and it was never
used.

------
p_l
So it removes one of the biggest benefits of remote work, ability to
concentrate?

~~~
andyfleming
We use Pragli, and I feel like it's the opposite. Rather than a Slack back and
forth to see if someone is available, setting up a video conference,
connecting, etc, you can pop in and say "hey, you have a minute?". They can
say "no" or "can you come back in 10?". It's like stopping by someone's desk.
If they really wanted to be heads down they can be in do not disturb mode.
They can still show as online (so their presence can be "felt"), but have a
status that says "Focusing" and block "calls". I think it's great.

~~~
steve1977
>They can say "no" or "can you come back in 10?"

By then, the damage to concentration has already been made. Yes, you can set
your status to "do not disturb". But you have to remember to do that.

~~~
andyfleming
Sure, it's still an interruption, but I don't think it's completely derailing.
That's why I compared it to stopping by someone's desk. It still requires both
parties to be responsible and aware.

~~~
barrkel
Stopping by someone's desk is derailing, FWIW. I frequently find myself losing
30+ minutes before getting flow back from a 2 minute interruption.

~~~
p_l
One interruption an hour is enough to result in me not being able to get
anything done for the whole day...

Actually, I'm starting to think I lost ability to concentrate because of that.

------
LeonB
I have a friend who uses an always on audio for his entirely remote team and
swears by it. I think it might depend on personality types. I’m willing to
admit it does work for some teams even if my own initial reaction is “no way!”

~~~
leetrout
I LOVE having always on push to talk audio like mumble or discord. If you want
to focus just log off. If you want to chat with the group jump in. Want to
have a side convo without screen share? Pop to another channel.

Mumble (speex codec) is great quality and low latency. Just has a poor UI /
UX.

~~~
xfalcox
I'm trying to convince my team to adopt a opt-in, voice only watercooler like
that for some time, without success so far.

I makes a lot of sense to me, who have been doing this for over a decade with
my friends.

Are you busy, don't join / mute yourself / go to the afk channel.

Are you waiting for a long build, just reading HN, between tasks? Join the
channel and people can bond and talk about work/life.

~~~
ikeyany
So essentially a conference call that lasts all day, every day? I can see why
your team did not approve.

~~~
leetrout
I think that’s a gross oversimplification.

If you happen to check your replies I’m genuinely interested:

\- do you work remote?

\- if so, do you choose remote for solitude?

\- if not- do you consider face to face interactions with your colleagues not
as good a use of your time?

Again, genuinely interested because the full remote teams I’ve worked with
that have voice comms at the ready have a lot less misunderstandings and the
barrier to conversation is much lower than having to make a zoom / slack call.

~~~
ikeyany
I don't work remotely anymore. It's not that I think it's a bad idea. I think
if a team isn't used to that level of communication, it makes for there to be
some pushback.

------
chrisfrantz
I’m pretty sure we don’t actually need any remote specific tools. The last
thing I want is random coworkers suddenly speaking in my headphones.

~~~
andyfleming
You can opt-out of the click to connect type of calls by setting the option in
your status.

~~~
mprev
Opting out isn't free, though.

It's a social signal and one that, potentially, brings with it additional
stress as you're actively opting out of something your colleagues/superiors
believe is good enough an idea that they've implemented it.

~~~
dsaffy
This is a good point. If the manager is going to implement Pragli, they need
to make it very clear that opting out is very OK and even encouraged... we
need to do a better job of making this feel socially OK in the app.

------
kstenerud
Maybe it's just me, but I prefer to not have voice conversations unless
absolutely necessary. A service like this would be stressful, because I'd
probably be the only one to stick to his guns and keep do not disturb mode on
at all times.

------
mr_justin
I love the idea of taking well understood analog concepts and applying them to
the digital remote workplace, but man, forced sync calls coming in on a whim
without my control to ignore them sounds like my absolute worst nightmare.

~~~
dsaffy
If you haven't already, take a look at the section "Solving Distraction:
Presence + Statuses + Calendar" in the article - I dive into our attempt to
solve this problem.

Do you think our solution is insufficient? If so, any ideas on how we could
further solve it?

~~~
tom_mellior
I think having to clutter my work calendar with "I'm working" entries is a
pretty clumsy way of signaling that I don't want people to randomly speak over
Beethoven in my headphones. I my company introduced this, I would invariably
"forget" to start the software at all, or would leave it on DND status
permanently.

Personally I just don't see the benefit over a chat message saying "time for a
quick call about <topic>? <zoom link>".

------
nautilus12
Its good until it becomes aware that you can use it to silently judge how
productive you think other people are being, which then changes the way you
work totally. Major benefiet of remote work is that you can work at a
reasonable pace without being monitored constantly, and end up producing more
because you are working at a pace thats more natural for creative work.

~~~
andyfleming
I think this is a cultural issue. You could say the same about JIRA. I've been
on teams that have used it to closely track developer productivity and
micromanage. In contrast, I've been on healthier teams that just use it how it
works best for them.

------
donpdonp
It would be easy to describe pragli as a conference call that never ends, but
I'm not sure thats fair. Its one of various forms of telepresence, like a
video wall or telepresence robot. If text messaging has taught us anything is
that a chatroom is the right amount of distraction most of the time - until
the VR workplace apps come (soon).

------
marcinzm
This seems like something I'd hate. I can at this point triage slack messages
without interrupting my flow. Notifications can be trivially ignored or put on
hold for 30 seconds or a minute. That's enough time for me to "save" my
current mental context and text requires little brain power to triage so I
don't lose my saved state for a non-urgent message. Voice is different,
suddenly going from quiet to someone talking in my ear will grab my attention.
I have to instantly drop my mental context and understand what they're saying.
And it involves all the social parts of my brain which again kills my
analytical context.

------
whalesalad
This is an even more egregious violation of someone’s attention than IM.

We tried to use mumble on one team with push-to-talk and it only lasted a few
hours.

~~~
reificator
I grew up with IM and distributed teams online, and am very comfortable with
it. It's my platonic ideal for remote/distributed communication... _until_
expectations around response times are put into place.

If I can receive a message, respond to it four hours or a day later, and
receive a phone call for anything more urgent than that, I'm happy to use IM
platforms for collaboration.

~~~
phonebanshee
You just described email.

~~~
reificator
No, because I can _also_ communicate in real time over IM.

Additionally the social protocols are different. An email requires (some level
of) planning and completeness. An IM can include just one question without
reams of context, or it can involve a long detailed back-and-forth.

Questions over IM can be resolved in minutes or hours. Questions over email
somehow morph into hideous monstrosities that waste days without anyone being
satisfied with the answers.

And of course your mileage may vary, different organizations are different,
etc...

------
steve1977
Meh... synchronous communication is almost always worse than async
communication in terms of efficiency, for example as the burden of thinking
time of both sides has to get carried by both sides of the communication.

------
hadlock
Seems like a Mumble server accomplishes the same thing. You can get general
channels with an open mic or push-to-talk, and you can also do open mic or
push-to-talk with individuals. Mumble is free and open source and runs on a
toaster-quality cloud instance with CD quality audio and no latency.

Kudos for someone doing the IRC->Slack but for voice chat/Mumble.

------
6510
Gave me a funny idea (its terrible I know) point a web cam at each remote
worker (you) then give the boss a traditional remote control with all 20 "TV"
channels. If the boss is looking an indicator light goes on and you get to
have a one way conversation with the boss in listen only mode. (extra points
for steampunk design TV/RC)

------
thrower123
Never in my life have I wanted to use a walkie talkie in an office.

I've used walkie talkies a fair bit on construction sites and industrial
plants, and there the value is obvious. Walkie talkies are a broadcast
mechanism - everyone stays on the public channel, and you don't squelch unless
you have something urgent to say.

------
Aloha
On the face of it, it looks like Voice IM, with that I'm trying to figure out
who needs this product or why its better than other options?

I don't understand where this fits in the hierarchy of human bandwidth (From
Lowest to Highest):

Text Message

IRC/IM/Teams/et al

E-Mail

Phone Call/Conference Call

Video Conference

Face to Face meetings

~~~
pastage
From experience it's between irc and having an office mate. I've only done it
with an always on videolink which is different from this.

The problem I see is that this seems to mean you need to learn radio dicipline
which is hard, compared to having a video link constantly broadcasting.

------
jasonkester
Back in the 90s I once worked at an office that had a phone system with no
ringer. You’d dial the extension and just start talking. Or you could “ring”
them by saying something like “hey Jeff!”

As a new guy in that office, never having met “Jeff” before, this was really
difficult for my introverted self to get used to. I was glad when I finished
the trip and flew back to the home office where phones worked like phones.

This seems a bit like that, but with at least the ability to set some
boundaries around who could start talking to you. If my current team adopted
this I bet I’d spend my whole day in “focusing, don’t interrupt me” mode.

------
peterloron
This sounds horrifying. Why make it even easier for people to disrupt you?

------
amatecha
Oh... I was a little disappointed that this wasn't literally about walkie-
talkies or a comparable technology, but rather some centralized internet-
dependent computer software :(

------
torgian
Eh. Slack and other chat programs are just as fine, and would enable less
distractions.

Don’t get me wrong, this is still a good idea. As a remote worker, I would not
go for this solution. I already use slack, and google calendars.

IMO I don’t need more than that. And I think your solution is convenience
oriented. Nothing wrong with that of course, people pay for convenience.

This seems more suitable for companies / employees that are semi-remote. I
don’t think people who are fully remote would be for this.

------
Flemlord
We've been using Pragli for a few weeks. The team loves it! We used Sococo and
Tandem in the past and this is the first presence app that is really being
used.

Great job guys!

~~~
dsaffy
Thanks! :)

------
Animats
Both AT&T and Sprint (which acquired Nextel) still offer push to talk
services. But they're not big sellers any more. What happened with that?

------
hawski
It's not the same, but I'm using Zello (IP walkie-talkie basically) with my
wife and it is very convenient. For example when we are in a shop or have to
quickly sync on something, especially if you have children. I imagine it could
be quite helpful for remote work, but it depends on many factors, work time is
one of them.

------
puneetchawla
Synchronous communication is killing productivity for remote users.

Another completely different model is async communication using videos.
[https://apps.apple.com/us/app/devtendo/id1488872267?ls=1&mt=...](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/devtendo/id1488872267?ls=1&mt=12)

------
agoodthrowaway
Not new. This existed a long time ago. It was called Nextel. Was hugely
popular with contractors and in construction trades.

------
swiley
I really like the calendar feature, I feel like (if it’s used appropriately)
it might encourage legitimate conversation.

------
donpark
While I don't think Walkie-Talkie metaphor works for remote teams in general
due to becoming an open invite to interruption, it may work for teams that
need to work in _tight collaboration_ , like in rapid emergency response and
battle management even when everyone is in the same building.

~~~
steve1977
Why not just set up a conf bridge for something like that?

------
speedgoose
It would be interesting to have an independent study of the system, perhaps
qualitative. Reading the other comments, not everyone is convinced by the idea
and having scientific data may help. If the data hurts, that's life.

------
lurien
Surprised no one's mentioned Relay PTT devices.
[https://relaypro.com](https://relaypro.com) Looks like a lot of businesses
are using them to replace radios now.

------
dsaffy
Quick note from the author: Pragli has a feature that is inspired by a walkie-
talkie. Pragli itself is not just an online walkie-talkie. Check out our
homepage if you want to learn more about Pragli (pragli.com)

~~~
_-___________-_
May I suggest that "Building a walkie-talkie for remote work" might not be a
good way to market it then?

As a remote worker for more than 10 years, the horror of the idea almost
stopped me even clicking the link.

------
cyrusmg
Is it just me or is the pragli.com website doing some heavy computations to
everyone ?

I connected via Firefox on Linux and my CPU temperature skyrocketed to 81C
almost immediately.

Note: Not this blog page, the main landing page itself.

~~~
divisonby0
Can confirm, eats up all 8 cores. Seems to be a script from
firebasestorage.googleapis.com

------
jaclaz
Related (2 days ago) about pragli.com QA:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22111178](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22111178)

------
buu700
We actually built a "walkie-talkie mode" in Cyph (cyph.com) for a lot of the
same reasons. Interesting to know that other people are thinking about this!

------
pts_
Culture is the biggest impediment to progress. Radio predates IRC by a 100
years. It's like most people DID NOT LEARN TO READ.

------
lazyant
what's the benefit of this compared to a chat/slack request for a
phone/videoconference call?

~~~
dstaley
Not trying to be snarky, but did you read the article or did you skim it? The
author explains the reasoning behind the walkie-talkie approach versus a phone
call.

~~~
mc3
he does but I am not sold on the benefits. A slack message "can we talk, call
me" would be async and non-distracting (just turn off slack alerts when you
want to focus). Using an online call rather than on/off (like a walkie talkie)
then seems much of a muchness.

~~~
s_y_n_t_a_x
Yes, and setting your status to "in a meeting", "away", "code sprint", etc. is
helpful. These are things that could be automated, I'd consider that a better
approach to the problem.

Let people know subtly you don't want to be disturbed unless it's important,
otherwise you will be.

------
samstave
“Marco Polo” is a pretty bad ass app for this...

------
RocketSyntax
Reminds me of the book The Joy of UX

------
sigviper
Congratulations, you just invented Skype for Business ;)

------
fortran77
We have a lot of fun with this walkie-talkie

[https://cb.virtualairwaves.com/channel/1](https://cb.virtualairwaves.com/channel/1)

WebRTC Push to talk. It "just works" in most desktop browsers. No login, no
registration. You can make private channels and there's several public ones.
There's an iOS and Android client, too.

We really like the "push to talk" model. You can leave the client up and
quickly say something to everyone else in your group. Especially good for non-
critial, time sensitive things (i.e., "Y'all want to get lunch?") that are
still important for a sense of "team"

~~~
TenXProgrammer
Agreed. I like Walkie Talkies -- both real ones, and virtual ones. Push-To-
Talk is a great way to communicate, and deserves to come back! It was very
popular in the 70s, and remains useful among "hams" and people who work on
movie sets, construction sites, etc.

