
Video conversations with up to 8 people for free. No login, no installs - ecthiender
https://whereby.com
======
dang
We got an email asking us to change the URL from
[https://appear.in/](https://appear.in/) to
[https://whereby.com/](https://whereby.com/), so we've done so.

------
dEtEriOr
[https://talky.io/hn](https://talky.io/hn)
[https://opentokrtc.com/hn](https://opentokrtc.com/hn)
[https://apprtc.appspot.com/?r=hn](https://apprtc.appspot.com/?r=hn)
[http://caatch.me](http://caatch.me) [https://vline.com](https://vline.com)

~~~
ama729
From Mozilla:

[https://togetherjs.com/](https://togetherjs.com/)

------
tsudot
This is a pretty interesting app to have conversations with friends.

Business calls, I've had a problem with video. It's often too cumbersome and
gives too much info about the visual aspect of myself when it's not necessary
and when I don't want it to happen. (e.g., getting on a call with a stranger
or clients.) Using the "voice" call, I won't worry over washing my face at 9am
in the morning.

Which is the reason I created
[http://voicechatapi.com](http://voicechatapi.com) (shameless plug)

------
sillysaurus2
This is pretty cool. Would it be possible to get basic text chat in there?
Some people have no mic but could benefit from this anyway. Thanks for your
hard work!

By the way, it works fine for me in Chrome.

~~~
bruun
If you look at the bottom of the room, there is (hopefully) a text chat :-)

------
TeeWEE
Haha I went to [https://appear.in/test](https://appear.in/test) and by pure
randomness somebody else also chose that name, and we were staring at each
other. hahah

~~~
niwri
Lol me too. Hi guy from Washington.

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scottydelta
How is this app different from the WebRTC demo available at
[https://apprtc.appspot.com](https://apprtc.appspot.com) since a long time?

~~~
rdtsc
None of them are. There are a gazillion of these on the web. They are just
webrtc demo + other things like "oh look you can also chat" or "oh your room
has a nice name". And so on.

Now not to say that it is bad thing. It is great. It is what Google wanted
(well they want people to use the web more and use Microsoft and iOS only
products less).

So you as a developer know that underneath the wiring is really simple and
basic but hey if users like it and it works out for them. One of these
products might win.

~~~
scottydelta
How much time do you think it took them to make this whole thing along with
their website? I would say as much time as they spent making a clean website
for their product.

~~~
ingridod
It's true that the basic concept of appear.in is pretty similar to a lot of
other WebRTC prototypes made (like the ones you mention). However we are
trying to turn appear.in into a commercial product that will be continually
improved and adapted to users' needs (that will likely change over time). It
is very easy to get a working prototype up and running (appear.in started as a
summer project, and three interns made the first working prototype in two
weeks: [http://comoyo.github.io/blog/2013/08/05/video-meetings-in-
th...](http://comoyo.github.io/blog/2013/08/05/video-meetings-in-the-browser-
using-webrtc-and-angularjs/)), but getting it to work smoothly in all kinds of
situations, on all kinds of networks and handling bugs (which occur
frequently) is another story. Not to mention keeping the product up to date
and making use of all the improvements that are made in the different
browsers.

We think that widespread adoption of a service like this will only be achieved
if the service "just works" and is adapted to users' needs through constant
development, and also through building a living brand that people love. We are
currently a team of 8 working full-time on this, not only programming, but
also with marketing, design & user testing.

------
calineczka
Do you know any app which allows up to 15 participants for free or by issuing
one time payment? My company is mostly ok with voice standups and meetings but
from time to time we want to experiment with video ones. We are still not sure
about them so we want to play around a little bit before deciding to switch to
a video tool. The problem is, most of the tools have a limitation for a number
of allowed participants so small that we cannot give them a try during our
weekly meeting because not all team members can join. Is there anything that
allows higher number? Or something that can be used once without recurring
payments? Must work on mac os, linux and windows. Preferably without using
browser plugins or java solution but if that's not possible then we can go
with them. So far hangout with their 10ppl limit and good compatibility across
platforms seems best. Webrtc solutions worked for us in technical terms but
were limited to 8 participants usually. Why always 8? I really hope there is
something out there that we could use.

~~~
dexcs
Give [http://wwww.dozeo.com](http://wwww.dozeo.com) a shot.

~~~
bashcoder
Typo - try [http://www.dozeo.com](http://www.dozeo.com)

~~~
dexcs
Thanks :)

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rlongstaff
Looks good, and seems simple to get going.

Two comments:

\- I set the background image but it didn't appear (the dialog box for that
seems to have no 'OK' or 'Save' button)

\- It would be good to have a microphone level indicator, so I can see whether
my microphone has been properly detected and working. There is one in Google
Hangout but is rather small and not very good IMHO.

~~~
ingridod
Thanks for the feedback, I'm product manager for appear.in. We'll note down
microphone level indicator and consider it for our road map.

As for the background image issue, can you e-mail us at feedback@appear.in for
follow up?

------
ansimionescu
I just tried it with 2 friends and it works amazingly well. There are few
things lately that I can say blew my mind - but this has. Really nice fucking
job!

~~~
dagingaa
Developer @ appear.in here. I've been following this thread today, answering
some questions and reporting bugs back to the team. I would just like to say a
big and sincere thank you for this comment. I just posted it to our internal
mailing list. In all honesty, feedback like yours truly make our day,
motivates us, and makes us work even harder to create a kickass service. So
again, thank you!

------
avodonosov
Check also Google Hangouts, allows 10 people. Although requires google login.
I don't remember whether I installed anything for it.

~~~
oafitupa
Yes it also requires installing something, forget it. I'm not gonna install
backdoors in my machine.

------
vhffm
This is great, thanks!

Fyi, there's also screen-sharing (hover the mouse over your own window for the
option), which works nicely (Chrome).

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jaksmit
and no video for me. just a blank grey screen. screenshot:
[http://www.webpagescreenshot.info/img/52ecb7fe4992f4-1130851...](http://www.webpagescreenshot.info/img/52ecb7fe4992f4-11308519)

~~~
lalwanivikas
I got the same problem when I opened it on Safari but it's working fine with
Chrome. I tried it with a friend of mine and it works fine. But I think audio
needs a bit of fine tuning.

------
advertising
This is great. Simple and seamless. Got online with a couple of guys at the
office right away to test it and worked pretty flawlessly. Couple lags here
and there but no biggie (likely network on our side).

Didn't get to test desktop share but if it works as well as the video chat did
we will definitely be using this for client presentations.

We would previously use Skype and/or join.me for client calls, but like gchat
a login or installs were necessary (even if only for the host). This is a much
simpler and elegant alternative. Particularly with the background option.

Love it so far!

------
pbhjpbhj
>"We need access to your camera and microphone to get started.

>"No, I'm in my underwear. Please take me back." //

Lol, nice tone.

Dialog to enable webcam didn't appear for me though.

Kubuntu 13.10, FF 26.0

~~~
ingridod
There is a known bug with Firefox 26 on Ubuntu 13.10 (and apparently other,
similar Linux setups). Track progress here:
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=750011](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=750011)

------
cindywu123
[https://appear.in/microryza](https://appear.in/microryza) can we get to 8
people?

~~~
r0h1n
Heh. I did join, saw two faces, and about 4 "we're really sorry..." error
messages on the other windows. And then then someone kicked me out :-|

~~~
cindywu123
try again

~~~
rdtsc
Hmm well is that because you are a developer and just fixed it or because that
should be what one would expect users to do. If it is the later then it is a
failure because as soon as something doesn't work, and if it requires people
to "keep trying again" until is randomly does, you'll lose the majority of
customers to competitors.

------
tonyg
Using firefox (26.0) on OS X works just fine. I get prompted to share my
camera and microphone.

Firefox 26 on Debian Linux, however, never shows the prompt. The appear.in
page just asks me to use the menu that should have (but didn't) appear.

~~~
dagingaa
This is unfortunately a bug internally in Firefox which affects certain builds
of Linux. See related bug:
[https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/12170...](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/1217091)

~~~
tonyg
Thanks for the pointer to the bug report!

I've just checked, and the (Linux Firefox) camera/mic permissions menu fails
to appear on the other WebRTC conferencing sites linked in this thread, too.
So it's definitely not just appear.in.

[Edited to add:] For others suffering from the same problem, the bug report
linked in parent suggests it may be fixed in FF 27, which will apparently be
released during the week of Feb 4th.

------
Nux
No luck from GP's Firefox OS, but seems to be working on my CentOS
workstation. Good job!

LE: I'm actually really, really impressed by this. It's bloody great, good job
to these guys and to whoever works on similar projects.

~~~
dagingaa
We have some guys working on FirefoxOS at our office actually (Telenor Digital
does many things). We tested appear.in on a recent build of master, and it
worked! Hopefully it will make it out to consumers soon. You can track support
through this issue:
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=750011](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=750011)

~~~
Nux
That's awesome! Keep up the good job. Currently I'm on 1.1.0.0hd-prerelease
but don't mind waiting.

~~~
dagingaa
I just talked to the FxOS guys, and they hope the support will be out around
1.4 or 1.5, but no promises. I don't know much more than that unfortunately.

------
simenfur
Appear.in is quite easy to integrate into a web app as well. Just generate a
random link and send users off to chat: blog.iterate.no/2014/01/29/youtube-
for-webrtc/

------
eps
Getting an empty dark gray page on iOS.

I realize Mobile Safari may not be a supported browser, but a graceful failure
with some sort of explanation wouldn't hurt, would it?

~~~
dagingaa
Developer @ appear.in here. For lack of better ways of communicating, at which
page did you experience this? We tested it on our own devices but couldn't
replicate.

~~~
eps
[http://appear.in](http://appear.in) \- just tried on iPad and got the same
dark gray page with absolutely nothing on it. Not running iOS 7 on either of
the devices though, perhaps check that?

~~~
dagingaa
We will investigate further. Thank you for reporting this! We definitely want
graceful degradation for iOS clients.

------
hughhopkins
So frictionless, really impressive work. Well done.

------
rhp
Bug: I clicked the little down arrow to minimize the chat window and it
beachballed Chrome (latest version, OS X).

Pretty awesome overall, though!

~~~
bruun
I agree, that seems like an overreaction to closing a text chat. Will put that
bug on my hit list, thanks for reporting it!

------
matthiasb
Tried it. Asked my friend to try on his iPhone. He installed Chrome as
recommended but Chrome on iPhone is not supported.

~~~
selectodude
Chrome on iPhone is just a different front end for Safari.

------
rlu
Screen sharing dialog box UI tells me to paste a URL into chrome - but I'm
unable to actually copy from it.

------
abcd_f

      Failed to get camera access.
      Please grant camera access to use appear.in
    

I have no idea how.

~~~
dagingaa
Which browser and OS are you on? Depending on that, it should be somewhere
near the top. Firefox has a tendency to close the accept dialogue if you
change tabs, and you can retrieve it by clicking the camera icon in the
address bar. Unfortunately there is no way for us to improve this UX from our
end, but we are working on more informative "waiting" pages.

~~~
windsurfer
I'm getting the same thing. Firefox on Ubuntu

~~~
dagingaa
This is probably related to a known bug with Firefox 26 on Ubuntu 13.10 (and
apparently other, similar Linux setups). Track progress here:
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=750011](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=750011)

------
dredmorbius
Sweet. For all my criticisms of G+, its voice/video chat has been a useful and
novel feature.

------
phaer
Is there some sort of end to end encryption available for this or any other
WebRTC-based VOIP app?

~~~
dagingaa
Developer on appear.in here: Everything between peers is encrypted using SRTP
end-to-end by default. From our FAQ:

"All communication between your browser and appear.in is transmitted over an
encrypted connection (SSL). Video and audio transmitted in the service is sent
directly between the participants in a room and is encrypted (SRTP) with
client generated encryption keys. In some cases, due to NAT/firewall
restrictions, the encrypted data content will be relayed through our server."

~~~
tonyg
What about the text chat messages?

~~~
dagingaa
At this point in time, all chat messages are relayed through our server. These
messages are sent over an encrypted socket to our server, then relayed. This
means that we do have the ability to read the messages (they're not
encrypted), but we do not store them, read them, or in any way allow your
privacy to be compromised knowingly.

We have strict access controls to the server, but the messages are sent via
Amazon. We realise that this is not ideal, and we want to, when the
DataChannels API has matured a bit, move message sending to a strict P2P model
as well. There are some issues with that (total ordering of messages for one)
which need to be solved first, but we're positive that those challenges can be
solved.

------
barnslig
[https://palava.tv/](https://palava.tv/)

------
jonespen
also, check out their tutorial about embedding a chat room in your app.
[http://appearin.github.io/tutorial.html](http://appearin.github.io/tutorial.html)

pretty cool!

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cindywu123
this is awesome it reminds me of how much i loved meetings.io before they sold

------
zapperen
Go Telenor!

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abhididdigi
Awesome.

