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Comment by hawski | Hacker News Reader

I was wondering what to use for video calls with my father. He has a mobile core 2 duo machine (one of Dell's micro desktop PCs).

Skype stopped working as stated in the title. I went with Facebook Messenger on Firefox, but video from his camera is very jerky. It looks like it hangs for a 1s every 1.5s. For me it's an indication of a performance problem - video is converted to a WebRTC friendly format and it's slow. I have to measure or check how it works with Chrome.

So I searched a bit for alternatives and now it seems that everything is to some extent Electron based. So I don't have high hopes. Ones that are interesting don't have fully functional Android client, like Tox.

Electron makes me sad. That means I should probably put some work where my mouth is and do a couple of proper desktop apps for messaging (using existing protocols) or help some Tox client getting there.

Or maybe do some work to make Electron more bearable?

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I want a dedicated hand-held that does video, and can lock the screen while maintaining video input and output.

I have a 16 month old kid; she has grandparents who are in various stages of decline, from "knees and back hurt a little" to "fairly advanced Alzheimers", and with various levels of computer expertise at the best of times.

I want to send each of them a tablet that someone configures once to be on wifi, and then just lets them receive calls from me, or the kid. I would also like this thing to be something sturdy enough I could just give to the kid so she can run around with it, and drool on it, without disconnecting the call until I unlock the device. (Grandparents aren't at the drooling stage yet, but at least one is likely to leave it outside in the rain.)

Does such a critter exist?

No, it does not, unless you stay in the Apple world, and use facetime.

The new Echo Show with drop in mode might work?

> and can lock the screen while maintaining video input and output.

Although not quite what you're looking for, I wrote a program for macOS and Windows [0] that locks keyboard and mouse input, specifically so I could have my kids in front of my computer for video calls without worrying about them hitting keys and messing things up.

0: https://www.imralsoftware.com/kamlock

How do you unlock it when you're done?

With a keyboard combination.

I'd also love such a thing: a plain and simple handheld thingy with two buttons "call", "answer" and that's it.

No worrying about updates, contact lists, launching apps, etc.

Maybe a tablet with Android and some add-on to avoid updates, lock screens, and crapware?

This is still vaporware but it sounds interesting https://www.joinloop.com

Thing you may want to try:

https://talky.io/ - needs Chrome or Chromium, fails to work under Firefox

https://about.riot.im/ - a Matrix client that looks fine

http://linphone.org/ - this is SIP based, so only if that is working on their network

However, I'm pretty much having the same problems, so I'd welcome suggestions myself.

Also https://appear.in — works fine in Linux browsers (Chromium and Firefox are both OK, use them myself regularly).

Just create a room, share the link and you're all set.

heartily seconded, although:

> video is converted to a WebRTC friendly format and it's slow

appear.in uses webrtc so if that's the problem over here it won't solve that.

We use it daily for team meetings at work. Appear.in always works and is the easiest way to set up a video meeting.

I'm one of the founders of Pluot. We make video calling softwar and hardware and we use our own stuff every day on linux. Our goal is to combine ease of use with high quality. We test on low-powered machines, and care a lot about working on as many setups as possible, though there are a lot of variables and we don't optimize for very low CPU situations.

You can go to https://pluot.co/new any time to create video call links and share them.

We'd love to hear feedback.

Alternative.to lists many Skype replacements available for Linux. (http://alternativeto.net/software/skype/?platform=linux) It doesn't list which ones are Electron-based, but I have to assume something there works well. I'm eager to try Slack, but I current work in a VERY Microsoft-dominated company, and the horrendous Skype FOR BUSINESS! is the only thing tolerated. (They even turned off the chat history! You know, to make it even MORE horrible.)

Do your dad a favor and buy him a tablet. I'd recommend an iPad for longevity and security reasons.

The previous team I was on was internal corp IT. Everyone was begging to ditch GotoMeeting and move to Skype.

But Skype was awful as well.

So we tested Zoom/Bluejeans/Hangouts and others (went with Zoom, fwiw).

We quit bothering with desktop/browser apps for video, and generally stuck to phone for audio only.

The Android and iOS experience with all of them was much less flakey.

Get Camfrog. For simple 1v1 video chat and chat rooms, nothing beats it, period, and it's free for pretty much every use excepting A. visiting multiple chat rooms at the same time and B. Seeing more than one person at a time in said chat rooms (pond chats are different.) One of the rare programs I actually pay for instead of cracking the crap out of it.

Maybe buy a couple of used iPad 2s for $100 a pop and use them exclusively for FaceTime. It seems to work far better than anything else for video chats, even on 5-year-old hardware. The power of native apps is real.

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