[77ko]

Duo is sad, and I feel Google is missing the point with all their tech improvements with Duo but no usability improvements.

I bought a Nest Hub Max for kids and grandparentst for video calls using Duo with family, and for one on one calls it's great especially for kids who move around, but with quantine the whole world (my version!) has quickly moved on to group video calls which ppl can enter and leave as they please.

Consequently everyone has stopped using Duo as it doesn't support that, and turns out you need to be able to easily chat with your calling group, another thing duo doesn't support.

Zoom, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger all work much better from a talking to a family group with varying tech know-how.

Zoom is a dedicated video but works much better than duo as you can make a link and drop it in a chat group for ppl to join. Duo has no such features!

So my fancy duo called machine is now just a photo display.

[lern_too_spel]

Worse, Hangouts supported that at the time Duo launched. Duo was a downgrade.

[tacomonstrous]

Duo supports group calls on mobile devices and browsers FYI.

[modeless]

But you can't add or remove people in a call. You have to call everyone simultaneously up front. If you didn't add someone at the start, you have to hang up and start a new call, and hope that everyone else hangs up too so they can join the new call.

Duo has a ton of problems around establishing calls, and identity in general especially with multiple devices. It also has kind of a mystery meat UI with unlabeled buttons and undiscoverable interactions. And the artificial separation between text and video chat (Allo/Duo) never made sense in the first place, and continues to hamstring Duo even after Allo's death.

[bilal4hmed]

Not on browsers, mobile, tablet and ChromeOS running the android app.