Best practices guide

Check your setup

Before joining an event, you can visit our System check page to test and troubleshoot your network, camera, and microphone setup.

Important: Turn off any VPN or firewall that is attached to your internet connection, because these will interfere with the data we are sending you and recieving from you, which in turn will erode or possibly ruin your experience in our software. If you cannot turn it off, connect us with your network administrators ahead of the event so we can work with them directly to prevent any trouble. If you are planning an event with participants behind a corporate firewall, please see our VPN/firewall guide.

Audio & echo

To get the most out of the noise-cancellation technology that’s built into your device already, it’s best to use headphones. This is because the microphone for your headphones is 100% sure about which sounds are coming from your mouth, vs coming from your speaker, and so it handles each of those two sound sources properly (you don’t hear your own voice coming out of your speakers, etc...).

Using peripheral speakers and microphones, including those attached to peripheral cameras, makes it harder for the computer to separate the audio you want to hear from your speaker from the audio you are speaking, and this is what causes some kinds of echo problems.

But don’t worry! You can reduce or eliminate any audio echo you may hear just by wearing earphones.

Best: wired earphones, and built-in camera/speakers
Second best: wireless earphones, also no peripheral camera/mic
Third best: use your device’s built-in speakers, camera, and microphone (still don’t use any ‘peripherals’ such as USB camera/mic). You can use an extra, larger screen if you have one.

Update your operating system and browser software

Your computer’s operating system and your internet browser work together to provide you a safe, smooth experience on the internet. Keeping them updated is critical, no matter which software you are using.

Therefore, a few days before your event, check to see if your operating system and your browser need to be updated, and do the updates as soon as possible.

Do not do the updates the same day as the event, since these updates may take several hours in total! Be aware that you may need to restart your computer during or after the update process.

For the best experience in our event software, for your browser we recommend Google Chrome (the best choice), Safari, Microsoft Edge, or Mozilla Firefox.

Maximizing your internet speed

Our software uses the internet to transmit audio and video, so the faster your internet connection, the more dynamic, natural, and clear you will appear and your interactions in the software will be.

You can make your computer’s internet connection faster at the time of the event by making fewer simultaneous demands on your internet connection. Here are some ideas for how to do this:

If you are at home, ask others on your internet network to read a book, watch a DVD, or play a board game instead of playing videogames or streaming content (via Netflix, etc). Streaming services use a lot of bandwidth, leaving less bandwidth for you and slowing down your event experience.

Close all the other tabs and software on your computer/device, so that you are only using it for the event itself. Don’t multitask!

Using tablets and mobile devices

It’s best to use a laptop computer that has a larger screen and built-in camera/mic (a second screen is fine), but if you must use a phone or tablet, match the mobile browser and operating system if possible: Use the Safari browser with any Apple device, and use Chrome for any Android device.