Tech Forum

russellhltn wrote:According to the news, the 40 minute limit has been lifted on free educational accounts.

Good to know. But hers is no longer an "educational account." She is using the standard free service that anyone can use (as I understand).

They advertise that anyone is able to use their free service with a 40-minute time limit. I would assume that they would wish to have folks upgrade and may be generous with their 40-minutes so as not to antagonize future potential customers.

davesudweeks wrote:

russellhltn wrote:According to the news, the 40 minute limit has been lifted on free educational accounts.

Good to know. But hers is no longer an "educational account." She is using the standard free service that anyone can use (as I understand).

I don't use the service, so I don't know the ins and outs, but the news is reporting that during the pandemic, the 40 minute limit has been lifted on "educational accounts". How they distinguish that from the regular free accounts, I have no idea. Maybe it's limited to those who signed up from a .edu email.

At any rate, it explains why some no longer have 40 minute limits, but I'd test before determining that it's available to all.

I don't think the paid accounts are that expensive.

We used the free Zoom version for leadership meetings over the past couple weeks and it's worked well. Got Pro subscription today that we plan to test with a virtual testimony meeting this Sunday. Had one member bring up zoom-bombing..I realize no platform is 100% hack proof but has anyone had an issue with that?

A quick search found this article which contains some tips to prevent problems.

This includes limiting what participants can do as well as cautions about how you share the information needed to join. (Don't post it publicly).

There is also a video from Zoom to help the host secure the session(s).

Thanks JD

One problem we have run into with several different platforms is low bandwith for many members in our rural community. I did an informal test with my dad who's connection is super slow. I also wanted to try them on someone over the age of 60 who struggles with technology. We tried Webex, Hangouts, Duos, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom. Here were the results:

Webex: Fairly easy for him to get into. I had to send him the link, and he was able to get in. (Or send a student the room number if they're on thier phone) We had a lot of pixelation with webex, and his voice would cut out fairly often.

Hangouts: Super easy for him to get on. I just invited him through Gmail, and he was on quick without having to install anything. This was by far the worst image quality and sound quality. Really bad I could barely tell it was him. He could see me clearly however (I think because of our super fast internet at my work).

Zoom: I had to setup a meeting and then send him a link. Once he had the link he had to install the Zoom app. He was able to do all of that with very little help from me, but it was a little more setup on my end. I found out later that similar to Webex it is very easy to just send people the link to my Zoom room that never changes. This was by far the best image and sound quality. I could see him clearly, and we didn't cut out once. When he shared his screen with me it was clear as a bell. We had tried a Bishopric meeting over Webex earlier in the week, and it was terrible. We all had to turn video off so that it would quit cutting out, but with Zoom it was quite a bit better.

Duos which is what Google is replacing hangouts with in the future is just terrible all the way around, so I'm not even going to say much there.

Microsoft Teams: I use this one a lot at work and was hoping this one would be the best. I added him to a team that I created then created a new chat. Both adding to a team and then adding to a chat sent him an email. He already had a Microsoft account, and I'm finding that most people do.(I didn't think he had one by the way) As soon as he logged into the online version of Microsoft Teams, I could see that he is online and I was able to initiate a video call. The video quality was about the same as Webex, but it got better as time went on. There are a lot of advantages to using Teams for business and classroom settings, but for church meetings I'm not sure that it's going to work very well. I have spent a fair amount of time just trying to help older ward members get online with their church account, and it can be painful.

So for me Zoom is the top dog. Image quality and reliability were the very best, and it was quite easy to get people into the room. It also has a very good meeting scheduling section, and I'm an educator so I'm hoping they'll give me more than 40 min per meeting here soon. If not we'll just pony up the $15.00 per month until the Church provides another method.

Nice summery. One item I'd be looking for is how well each does into different roles: First, the meeting which is more of a peer group and discussion takes place. The second is more like a ward sacrament meeting where most are just viewers and you have a few speakers that take turns. Members are going to want to see the speaker without having to turn on their camera.

davesudweeks wrote:I don't have any personal experience, but my wife used Zoom extensively ... Participants do not have to download an app to use it - they can join with just a browser.

Is it possible to use Zoom without downloading an app? Getting people to install an app is a hurdle, so if you can just access it through a browser, it would be a plus. I thought you had to have an app installed for Zoom.