In a Space you talk by walking up to people. Out on the open floor you hear the characters near yours and nobody else: a voice fades as its person walks away, and sits to your left or right as they stand. Step into a room and it becomes a call of its own, with walls nobody hears through. Someone too far away to hear still shows that they are talking, so you can choose to walk over and join in.
Audio rides Avatar mode: only a walking character has a place on the board, so only someone walking hears or is heard. People in a Space can also turn on a camera or share a screen; see Cameras and Screen Sharing.
Calls are not switched on everywhere yet. Where they are off, there is no Join Audio button, and everything else in the Space works as usual.
Join Audio
Walk into the Space: press the board's Walk In button, or W. The call's controls sit in the
bottom-right corner, beside the Avatar button.
Press Join Audio. Your browser asks for your microphone the first time (allow it to be heard). If your link lets you listen but not speak, the button says Listen In instead and asks for nothing.
You now hear the people near you. Once you are in, the strip shows your microphone, Camera, Share (for Editors) and Leave. Press Leave to stop hearing and being heard: your microphone is released straight away.
Audio only works on a Space other people can reach. A Space saved in this browser alone has nobody to talk to, so it shows no audio controls. Leaving Avatar mode, switching to another tab or closing the page also leaves the call.
Who you hear
You hear people on the same tab, and only while you both walk. Somebody sitting in a chair is heard from where the chair is. On the open floor (anywhere outside a room: a corridor, a lawn, the space between rooms), you hear the people within earshot:
- Closer is louder. A voice is full volume when you are right next to its person, and fades smoothly to silence as they walk out of range. There is a little give at the edge, so somebody standing on the boundary does not flicker in and out.
- Left is left. A person standing to your left is heard more in your left ear, which helps when a few people talk at once.
- Walking away leaves a conversation. There is nothing to hang up: walk over to another group to join theirs.
Rooms are calls
A room in a Space (an Office Room, with its walls and doorway) is a call of its own, so a meeting in it stays private:
- Inside a room, you hear everyone in the same room, at full volume, however far apart you stand. Voices still sit to your left or right, so you can tell who is talking.
- Walls block sound. Nobody outside hears anyone inside, however close they stand to the wall or the door, and nobody inside hears anyone outside. Two rooms side by side don't hear each other through their shared wall.
- The doorway is the line. You are in a room once your feet are past the line of its walls. Standing in the doorway with your feet on the corridor side, you are still in the corridor; one step in, you are in the meeting.
- A room inside a room is private from the one around it, so a phone booth drawn inside an open-plan room is a quiet corner of its own.
- A room on a hidden layer is no room: it neither blocks walking nor makes a call.
In the Virtual Office template, the meeting rooms, the phone booths and the kitchen are each their own call, and the open floor between them is by distance. The Coworking Space and the All-Hands Hall are each one big room, so everyone inside hears everyone else inside.
Your microphone
Once you are in, the first button in the strip is your microphone. Press it to mute, and again to unmute. When muted, nothing is sent at all. Its look tells you at a glance whether anyone hears you, and hovering it names the state in words:
- Live: somebody hears you: anyone in your room, or in earshot on the open floor. A soft ring round the button breathes with your voice.
- Nobody Near: your microphone is on, but nobody hears you. People further off, or on the other side of a wall, still see that you are talking.
- Muted: nobody hears you. Press to unmute.
- Mic Blocked: your browser refused the microphone. Allow it from the address bar, then join again. You still hear everyone.
- Mic Off: nobody else is on this tab, so your microphone has closed (your browser's recording light goes out). It opens again the moment somebody arrives. This happens after you have been alone on the tab for 15 seconds.
Seeing who is talking
When someone talks, three small bars in their colour bounce above their name. You see them for everyone on your tab, not just the people you hear, even through a room's walls: the bars only say that somebody is talking, never what is said, so a closed meeting room reads like glass.
- People you don't hear have calm, faint bars, fading further with distance, so the nearest conversations stand out.
- People you hear have brighter bars, so you can see who is coming through.
- Your own bars show above your own head while you talk, so you can tell you are coming through.
Hover or tap someone's bars to see "Sam is talking, walk over". Press them and your character walks towards Sam, stopping a short way off so you do not bump into them. This works while you are walking; otherwise the bars only show.
Only a rough level of each person's voice is sent to show the bars, never the sound itself: nobody out of earshot receives any audio. Nothing said in a call is recorded or stored anywhere.
Speaking from a stage
A Space can hold a Stage: a raised platform with its name on a plate at the front. Whoever stands on it, and may speak from it, is heard by everyone on the tab, in any room or none, at full volume. Several people on a stage hear each other as one room does.
While someone speaks from a stage, everyone else in its room (or, for a stage on the open floor, everyone else on the tab) is the audience: the stage does not hear them, and they hear each other only by distance, so neighbours can whisper without the whole hall hearing. Walls still stand, so a meeting room elsewhere on the tab stays its own call. Step off the stage and you are back in your room's call straight away.
Raise your hand
In a stage's audience, the stage does not hear you, but you can ask to speak.
- Raise Hand appears in the call strip while you are in a stage's audience. Press it and a small amber hand shows beside your character, where everyone can see it. Press Lower Hand to put it down.
- The people on the stage see how many hands are up, as a count in their call strip. They, and any Editor, can press the hand beside your character to Let Speak.
- Once you are let speak, the hand turns into a green microphone and your strip reads Speaking: everyone in the Space hears you, as if you were on the stage. Your camera stays with the people who would see you anyway.
- Your turn ends when you press Lower Hand, when the stage presses your microphone again (Done), or when you walk out of the room. Leaving audio or the Space puts your hand down too.
If you stand on a stage that only lets Editors speak, a short line above the call strip says so: you are heard as the audience is, and you can raise your hand like anyone else.
Do Not Disturb
Need to concentrate? Open the Avatar panel and set your Status to Do Not Disturb. A red dot with a white bar shows above your character, so people know not to expect an answer.
- No voice reaches you, not even from a stage, and no one's camera or screen. Other people's talking bars disappear for you.
- You can still be heard if you speak, so turning to a neighbour does not need the status cleared. Your microphone keeps its own mute.
- While you are in a call, the strip shows Do Not Disturb; press it to turn it off. It lasts for this visit only, like every status.
Who can speak
| What you can do | Editor | Participant | Viewer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Join and hear the people near you | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Speak from a stage | Yes | When allowed | No |
| Speak, mute and unmute | Yes | Yes | No |
| Show your talking bars to others | Yes | Yes | No |
| See who is talking, and walk over | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Raise and lower a hand | Yes | Yes | No |
| Let a raised hand speak | Yes | From a stage | No |
| Set Do Not Disturb | Yes | Yes | Yes |
A stage lets Editors speak from it, and Participants too when it is set to; anyone else standing on it is heard as the audience is. Guests speak too, wherever their share link is an Editor or Participant one: audio needs no sign-in. A Viewer link listens: its button says Listen In, and the strip shows Listening rather than a microphone.
When calls are paused
Calls can be paused for a while across livehuddle. The button then reads Calls Paused, calmly rather than as an error, and everything else in the Space carries on. Press it to try again. If it says Audio Unavailable, audio could not start; press it to try again.
Wear headphones if you can: hearing a voice on your left or right works best with one ear on each side.
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