Just wanted to post a quick update. We've decided to move ahead with Slack, it is AWESOME. And I'm completely in love with the IRC support, it is my desktop client of choice at the moment - functionality is limited but the familiar interface feels good.
@CB said:
I have never had, or until now even heard of, a reliability issue with Hangouts.
I am a remote worker and live in Hangouts. I hate Hangouts. Not as much as trying to run MS Communicator on Mac OS X, but I still hate it.
The screen sharing quality is bad and should feel bad.
Don't get me started on "I pasted it in the chat." Too late. Did you mean the chat inside the video Hangout? The chat Hangout we were in before we switched to video? The separate chat Hangout window that got created for the video Hangout?
But the thing that really gets me is how alerts don't seem to work half the time. Or if you have the Chrome App (that's an App not an Extension because there's probably a legitimate reason why end users should have to know the difference) and you get a call you're going to spend the first 30 seconds of your video call saying "hang on, I can't get Hangouts to stop ringing even though I answered." Heaven help you if you have the mobile app too.
But, we're a Google Apps shop and everyone has Gmail open and so it "just works" and there's no other free-ish solution that does multi-party video calls as well and links to our AD server. So I'll keep waiting for something good to come along. HipChat was so close, but didn't do good multi-party video.
As for reliability - we get dropped hangouts all the time but 95% of the time that's a WiFi issue in the office, not a Hangouts issue.
Comments
I have never had, or until now even heard of, a reliability issue with Hangouts.
@CB said:
I prefer to use hangouts with my gaming headset at home for domestic calls vs my mobile...always excellent.
Just wanted to post a quick update. We've decided to move ahead with Slack, it is AWESOME. And I'm completely in love with the IRC support, it is my desktop client of choice at the moment - functionality is limited but the familiar interface feels good.
Thanks for everyone's suggestions!
I am a remote worker and live in Hangouts. I hate Hangouts. Not as much as trying to run MS Communicator on Mac OS X, but I still hate it.
The screen sharing quality is bad and should feel bad.
Don't get me started on "I pasted it in the chat." Too late. Did you mean the chat inside the video Hangout? The chat Hangout we were in before we switched to video? The separate chat Hangout window that got created for the video Hangout?
But the thing that really gets me is how alerts don't seem to work half the time. Or if you have the Chrome App (that's an App not an Extension because there's probably a legitimate reason why end users should have to know the difference) and you get a call you're going to spend the first 30 seconds of your video call saying "hang on, I can't get Hangouts to stop ringing even though I answered." Heaven help you if you have the mobile app too.
But, we're a Google Apps shop and everyone has Gmail open and so it "just works" and there's no other free-ish solution that does multi-party video calls as well and links to our AD server. So I'll keep waiting for something good to come along. HipChat was so close, but didn't do good multi-party video.
As for reliability - we get dropped hangouts all the time but 95% of the time that's a WiFi issue in the office, not a Hangouts issue.
I agree that hangouts is bad. It's a terrible product overall, even though outside of work I use it constantly.
I can't imagine using Slack via an IRC client. You're missing out on so much of what makes Slack great