My opinion on Whereby, easy and free videoconferencing service
In these times of coronavirus confinement, telework is exploding and the imposed social distancing makes people want to… see each other
Videoconferencing is (finally!) developing massively, but you still need to know which solution to use.
I have been teleworking full time for 4 years and I am used to using :
- Teams: Microsoft’s collaborative work solution adopted by my main client. I loved to hate Microsoft during my student years but I must admit that Teams is a great tool perfectly integrated to the Office suite.
- Hangouts Meet: Google’s solution that is perfectly integrated with Google Calendar and has the advantage (in the paid solution I use) of allowing you to join the conference by calling a local phone number. Very useful when you don’t have the necessary hardware or when you have a bad connection.
These two solutions are excellent but have two drawbacks:
- They aren’t free (Hangouts Meet is partially free)
- There aren’t ions of registration / login / authorization that often cause problems when you want to invite a participant from outside the organization or who isn’t used to using the solution.
This is where the Whereby solution has its place and provides an answer to these two drawbacks.
What is Whereby?
Whereby (formerly appear.in) is a video conferencing solution
It is distinguished by several characteristics:
- No installation is necessary, you use your browser directly (an Android and iOS application exists but isn’t essential).
- No registration is required (except for the meeting organizer)
- Whereby is free of charge (for videoconferences up to 4 people, paying for more)
The principle is very simple, with Whereby you can create permanent trade shows, just send the link of the trade show to your contact person. He will just have to specify his name, authorize the use of the camera and microphone and he will be instantly connected. It couldn’t be simpler and faster! There isn’t even need to install an extension
Whereby works with any device: computer, tablet, smartphone.
In one click, you can share your screen with other people. Ideal to make a presentation.
What are the benefits of paid subscriptions?
The free version of Whereby is fully functional. The main limitation is that it cannot host meetings with more than 4 people.
There are two paid subscriptions.
The Pro subscription at $10/month which has as main advantages :
- The creation of 3 different trade shows
- Personalization of the shows (company logo)
- Meetings with up to 12 participants
- Recording of meetings ($5/month option)
The Business subscription at $60 / month which has as main advantages :
- The creation of 10 different trade shows
- Personalization of the shows (company logo)
- Meetings with up to 50 participants (12 in video, the rest in audio only)
- Recording of meetings
- Integration with calendars
- Each user has his own lounge in addition to the shared lounges
Subscriptions are non-binding and can be cancelled with one click. There is a discount for a one-year commitment.
The big drawback of Whereby
Whereby works peer to peer, meaning that you send and receive audio and video directly to and from each of your interlocutors. If you have a meeting with 4 people, Whereby will create from your connection 3 “pipes” to each of your interlocutors.
In comparison, Hangouts Meet only works peer to peer if you have a single contact (and therefore a single pipe). If there are more people, it’s a Google server that will consolidate all the feeds on one of its servers and you will have only one pipe there too. To Google’s server and not your interlocutor.
Whereby therefore requires a better internet connection than competing solutions
My opinion
I love Whereby and its ease of use but I don’t use it very much because I’m often in countries with slow internet connections and Whereby needs a lot of bandwidth. If your connection is sufficient (Whereby recommends 3.2 mb/s up and down), I highly recommend you to use it, it’s a great solution.
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