Bellbird - A Free Video Chat Tool That's Easy to Use
As COVID-19 continues to spread around the world, a lot more people are being asked to stay at home to help slow it down. That means a lot of us are now struggling to find ways to not only work from home, but also adjust to a difficult new reality – boredom and loneliness.
We know many people want to keep working if they can, and spending time with friends and family is a big part of what makes life worth living. So we've decided to help out by releasing our new video calling service, Bellbird, for free.
Engoo tutors and students will already be familiar with Bellbird. They use it every day to teach and learn English as part of our private, one-on-one online English lessons.
But now anyone can try it, whether they're a part of Engoo or not! Visit https://engoo.com/app/meeting to try it out.
Existing tutors and students can use their normal accounts, and anyone else will be taken to the account creation page when they click "create a call." If you have any trouble, step-by-step instructions for getting started can be found here.
The great thing about Bellbird is that only the person creating the call needs an account, which makes it very easy to use.
It takes about a minute for one person to create their free account, and then they can share a link with anyone they want to join the call. That person just clicks on the link, and they're talking!
Bellbird was originally built for online teaching, and it's excellent for that, even if you're not teaching English like we do. But we've also found it's great for any time a face-to-face conversation would be useful - whether you're just using it to catch up with friends and family, or as a simple way to keep your business open by letting employees work from home. It also lets you chat using text, and share PDFs and images.
We've found it's especially handy for staying in touch with people who aren't great at using technology. Grandma doesn't have to worry about creating an account, adding contacts, or getting confused. Just send her a link, tell her to click on it, and watch her smile when she sees your face.
Also, because we created Bellbird for our tutors and students, security is very important to us. We don't save any audio or video from the calls, and the vast majority of them are peer-to-peer, which means most don't even move through our servers. Your data is safe with us, and you can learn more about our privacy policies here.
Now, let's take a look at some of Bellbird's features and how to get the most out of using it.
The Video Calling Interface
Here's an overview of what you'll see when you first create a call, before anyone else has joined it. The different buttons are labeled with numbers below.
- Camera: click to turn your camera off/on.
- Microphone: click to mute/unmute your microphone.
- Speakers: click to mute/unmute your speakers.
- Call settings to select your camera and microphone source.
- Switch between full screen video and side screen video. Changes in video position are synced for all participants. (This button will only appear once you have interacted with shared files or our lesson materials)
- End call button.
- Call link. Click here to copy the link you need to share with people you want to join the call.
- Your video feed.
Once you have clicked the "Copy meeting link" button, and shared the link with the people you want to join, they will appear on video in front of you. People's microphone and video will normally be turned on automatically. However, if their microphone or camera is not turned on, you may see the following:
9） Mic muted icon. If the person you're chatting with has their mic muted, you will see this icon. If their mic is on, the icon will not display and you will hear the other participant.
10） Video off icon. If the person you're chatting with has their video turned off, you will see this icon. If their video is on, the icon will not display and you will see the video feed.
11） Call link. Click here to copy the link you need to share with people you want to join the call.
As more participants join the call, each person's video feed will adjust position accordingly. We recommend using it for a maximum of 6 people. Audio-only calls can handle many more.
If you've ended the call and want to join again, click the "Reconnect" button or access the shared link again. Any chat messages or notes you've made will still be there.
Chat and Notes
A chat and notes window can be found to the right of the video window.
If you have an account and are logged in, your display name will appear. Logged out participants and those without accounts will appear as anonymous animals.
Editing and Deleting Messages
You can hover over your message to see the edit and delete icons. If you edit a message, a pencil icon will remain next to the edited message. If you delete a message, "You deleted this message" will display instead, while other participants will see "This message has been deleted."
Emojis
There is an emoji button on the right side of the text input box. Click it to select an emoji.
Collaborative Notes
"Notes" is a collaborative writing tool intended to allow all participants in a meeting room to edit a single document.
Use it as a way to write minutes or to create a to-do list for the meeting. Notes can be accessed by clicking the "Notes" tab at the top right of the chat window.
File Uploads
PDF and image files can be uploaded to the meeting room. The maximum file size is 15MB.
To upload files, click on the icon to the left of the text input box, then select a file. Or you can drag and drop a file into the chat area.
If you don't have a PDF, you can easily create your own. Most browsers and software will allow you to create a PDF by using the "print" function and choosing to save the file as a PDF.
Synchronized Navigation
Opening an uploaded PDF file will open the PDF view for all participants below the video feed. Be sure to exit fullscreen mode to be able to scroll down and view whatever document has been opened.
If the PDF is multiple pages long and you click on a page number, everyone will jump to the same location.
Shared Highlighting
If you select text in the meeting room (in either chat, notes, or a shared file), other participants will see the highlighted text.
To easily navigate to a highlighted location that is higher up or lower down in the document, click on the name flag that will appear when someone highlights something - this will take you to the selected area.
Let Us Know Your Thoughts
Finally, we just want to say that this is still a work in progress. We built Bellbird for use by our tutors and students, and it works great for that – we've already used it for over 10,000,000 lessons!
We've only just released it to the public, so there are currently a few limitations, like the upper limit on video call participants mentioned above.
But we haven't finished. We'll be continuing to add new features and improve things over the coming weeks and months. For example, we hope to add a screen-sharing function some time in the next few weeks.
So if you notice any problems, have suggestions, or just need some help, you can learn more here, or contact us at bellbird-support@engoo.com.
In the meantime, we hope you find Bellbird useful, and we'd love it if you shared it with as many people as you can. Try it here!
