Remote working is synonymous with video calling now. While Zoom is for anyone to use, these unique video chat apps offer something more for teams and professionals.
The world is moving towards remote working and work-from-home arrangements, and video calling is an integral part of this shift. While there are some great free alternatives to Zoom, each team has its own requirements. Check out these unique team video calling apps to improve your distributed team.
1. Wonder (Web): Spatial Video Conference to Form Groups and Jump Between Them
Wonder is the video chat app that many people have been waiting for. It's the best interface for spatial video conferencing, i.e. a virtual space where multiple groups can form, video chat, and you can jump between them.
Once you create a Wonder room, you can invite up to 1500 users for free. That's a huge number that you won't find in most other apps, making this a formidable video platform for conferences and webinars. And it's completely browser-based, with no installations needed. You'll need to register to use it though.
Forming a group or connecting to one is as simple as dragging your chat bubble icon to it. The host of the meeting can also create spaces on the canvas and assign a topic to each. When the host wants to speak to all participants, there's a Broadcast button to send a message that everyone will hear (after a 10-second delay, that tells users a Broadcast is incoming).
Apart from video conferences, Wonder would be great for small teams too. You can start video chats with one or many colleagues as needed, the boss can issue broadcasts when they need to, and people can jump between different dedicated "rooms".
2. Kumospace (Web): Virtual Office for Always-On Video Calls
Kumospace is like Wonder, but amps it up with the design elements. It's almost like creating your own Slack for video calls. It's free for up to 25 participants in one room at a time.
The virtual room can be customized with preset templates for a living room, office, local bar, rooftop bar, student center, center stage, and holidays. All participants' video calls shows up as small bubbles. When two bubbles are near each other, they can hear each other, just like in a real space.
You can check who can hear you with the range indicator. The default is a pretty large bubble, so you might want to set the audio range to "Quiet" in the settings to reduce the size of the bubble. But if you have many people in a group, you can always expand it back to "Normal."
At any point, click the Map button to see who is where in the room, and join conversations by dragging your bubble towards them. You can also use the Megaphone to broadcast a message to everyone in the room. And there's text chat too.
3. Alto (Web): Privacy-Friendly Avatar Chat for Video Calls
When you're working from home, you might not be looking your best when you need to do a video call. Plus, always-on video calls infringe upon your privacy, and any person or activity in the background gets broadcast to all colleagues. Alto is a more privacy-friendly way to video chat.
Instead of your face, Alto shows an animated avatar. You can customize this avatar before joining the video chat, setting your preferred hairstyle, hair color, and skin tone. The app will still need access to your webcam and microphone, as it tracks your facial expressions in real-time to depict them on your avatar.
Alto is one of those great video chat apps that don't need registration. You can change your username, and create your own private room, or join a public room. It works on peer-to-peer technology, so nothing is stored on Alto's servers. And Alto specifically mentions that
4. Jamm (Windows, macOS, Linux): Floating Heads Chat and Recorded Video Stories
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In a crowded field of remote-working team apps, Jamm stands out with a few cool features. The app is especially great for teams that prefer to communicate through video than text chat or emails.
First, Jamm offers a mini video chat mode, where every team member turns into a floating head, taking up much less room on the screen. You can move and resize this column of floating head bubbles for an unobtrusive screen. It's great when you're sharing a screen, letting you easily jump between different apps and windows while still seeing faces on the video chat.
Second, Jamm lets you record videos for later. The big difference between text chat and video is that most video chat apps require both users to be connected. On text chat, you can quickly leave a message which the other person will read when they're free to. Jamm brings that ability to video, almost like recording video stories on social media apps. You can even create full tutorials and share them with your team.
Apart from these two main features, Jamm includes a bunch of other neat tidbits. The floating head uses AI to always track your face through your camera, even when you move. Jamm has a built-in whiteboard for collaboration. You can integrate it in Slack to start video chat directly.
Jamm is currently free for a few months during the COVID-19 pandemic. After that, there is still a free account that serves teams of up to four people. For larger teams, you'll need to upgrade to paid Basic or Pro accounts.
Download: Jamm for Windows | macOS | Linux (Free)
Note: All Linux builds are currently in alpha and may not be stable.
5. Snack (Slack): Time-Restricted Video Chats to Get to Know Colleagues
Remote working takes away the fun of watercooler conversations to get to know your colleagues better. Snack brings that experience within Slack through time-restricted video chats that randomly pair two employees.
Install Snack in your Slack group and it'll create a new #snack-club channel. All those who join the channel will then be part of the random video chats. Set a few interests and Snack will match you with teammates for 5-minute video calls, at the designated Snack chat times.
The app doesn't repeat matches, so that you can meet new teammates. Each video chat also includes a few ice-breaker questions that you both have to answer, a fun way to know something new.
Try Always-On Voice Chat Instead of Video Calls
When you're working from home and miss the chatter around the office, the solution might just be that: the chatter. Video calls can feel too intrusive for a lot of people, so instead, you might want to try always-on voice chat.
The good news is that there are several fantastic voice chat apps for gaming that you can use for free. Discord is the most popular option and a stable connection for people to talk without sharing their screens. But really, any of these gaming apps can double up for office usage better than dedicated "professional team" apps.
