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Show HN: Squawk – Walkie Talkie for Teams
- zumachase 6y agoHi all - open beta of a tool we created for ourselves during lockdown. We got sick of trying to replicate the effortless comms we had in the office, and hated managing a half dozen always-on Zoom/Slack/etc calls. So we built Squawk.
- nerdponx 6y agoAre you planning to open-source this? Will it become a paid product? Is it P2P or are you hosting it?
- zumachase 6y agoWe're not planning to open source it. Some features down the road will become paid but the free version will always contain at the very least what you see today. The heavy lifting is done P2P falling back to our TURN servers if NAT traversal is necessary.
- n3k5 6y agoThat's good to know; you should put that information on the web site. Especially the part about the business model. Another thing I'd like to know before considering downloading the app is system requirements. A lot of people aren't on the latest version of Windows/MacOS yet.
- redhale 6y agoThis seems cool. I'm curious -- did you try out TeamSpeak before building a custom tool?
- gil 6y agoI looked into TeamSpeak when searching for a multi-channel PTT tool a few weeks ago and couldn't find a way to listen to multiple channels and talk/reply to each channel individually. Does TeamSpeak support that? I ended up having to compile from master what was a very recently merged feature to Mumble: https://github.com/mumble-voip/mumble/pull/4011 https://github.com/mumble-voip/mumble/pull/4011 EDIT: typo
- hvd9900 6y agolooks good!
- simon_000666 6y agoAwesome! Great idea - if you are looking for feature requests, it would be great if you could also create only bi-directional channels on demand. Basically like a Star Trek communicator...
- zumachase 6y agoThanks! Definitely looking for feature requests. I'm not sure what you mean. Do you mean quick/throwaway groups?
- simon_000666 6y agoI just meant more - 1<>1 channels. So I could say : sqwark Dave and it instantly creates me a 1<>1 channel with Dave of he’s available. Also just noticed the second download link lower down the page doesn’t work.
- zumachase 6y agoAh yeah that's on our todo list. At the moment, we tend to create groups like "Person A / Person B" but it's not ideal. The plan is that you can also Squawk anyone inside a group 1-on-1. Screen-sharing is next on the list. Download link fixed...thanks!
- simon_000666 6y agoCool, yep that also works. Another awesome thing would be the option to run a speech to text algo on the conversation and have it transcribed into the channel log so if I miss the conversation I can catch up on things. But also you would need an ‘off-the-record’ Mode if you wanted to complain in private.
- simon_000666 6y agoAnother thought, is maybe you could also make this a slack plugin. Would reduce the onboarding friction.
- 6y ago
- pritambaral 6y agoHow does it compare against Mumble or TeamSpeak?
- zumachase 6y agoTeamSpeak and Discord are oriented towards staying in one channel for longer periods of time which we found cumbersome. Squawk is more conducive to having many groups that you can switch between seamlessly: just push-and-hold to talk to a different group. Technically speaking, probably very similar: Squawk is webrtc based and fully end-to-end encrypted.
- eeZah7Ux 6y agoMumble is entirely Free Software and self-hostable.
- pensatoio 6y agoWhat happens when you have incoming audio from two different groups? Can you select a particular group to use PTT?
- zumachase 6y agoThis is a tricky problem, and we have a couple of ideas. But currently if we're having a longer chat (double clicked will latch-open the mic) then we mute the other groups. Anyone else in the other groups will be able to see that you're muted. We're contemplate auto-muting other groups when you have incoming audio. Would love to hear your thoughts as well.
- dharmab 6y agoWhen I played milsim games like Arma, a useful feature was to have my "squad channel" in my left ear, "command channel" in my right ear, and separate keys to PTT for each channel.
- gil 6y agoDid you find anything with those features already? I have a very similar scenario and I'm currently exploring what is available.
- dcsan 6y agoI wonder if a "dispatcher" model might be interesting for this, like an old style minicab/police service. Then people could use squawk-scanners for the channels they want to listen into. It could get annoying if its on all day, SOMA FM provides an interesting police scanner with audio mix which is an oddly relaxing soundtrack https://somafm.com/scanner/ https://somafm.com/scanner/ Are you going to add some jargon, the stuff that made CB radio kooky back in the day?
- mattbk1 6y agoSee also http://websdr.org http://websdr.org for ham radio listening.
- chpwssn 6y agoGreat idea! Switching the model from idling in one channel to being in multiple groups at the same time is a good idea. Do you have plans on releasing a binary for Linux?
- zumachase 6y agoThanks! Yeah we definitely will release linux (it's electron based so no reason to leave linux out). It works better as an app but you can also access it in browser at https://app.squawk.to https://app.squawk.to
- melicerte 6y ago+1 for linux support. This is a great idea we would like to test as a confined/work for heom team, but most of my collegues (including myself) is using Linux.
- kawfey 6y agoThis is cool. I can't wait to try it out! Crazy Feature request: One of the things I've wanted for years out of a software based walkie-talkie like this is manual audio spacial diversity control (a.k.a. 3D audio). That way I can have multiple simultaneous channels, but be able to change the position (left/right/forward/45deg/etc) and the volume of each feed so I can have situational awareness with all channels while being able to use my brain to separate and focus on a particular channel. These kinds of systems are often marketed to dispatch agencies, mission control, government/military customers, etc, and are super expensive[0]. I've never seen a consumer-grade version of 3D audio like this, but that would be super beneficial to ad-hoc communicators in disasters, scanner enthusiasts, public event coordinators, county/city-level EOCs that can't afford expensive systems. [0]:https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/24741/new-3d-audio-will-allow-a-10-pilots-to-hear-alerts-come-from-the-direction-of-the-threat https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/24741/new-3d-audio-wil...
- zumachase 6y agoThanks! The tech in the link is awesome...might be above our pay grade.
- plttn 6y agoIt's definitely doable. Dolby Axon (which shut down a few years ago) had positional voice chat.
- garaetjjte 6y agoIt should be easy to integrate game audio engines, such as OpenALSoft.
- rasz 6y agoAureal A3D. Technology was developed in the nineties for NASA. Stolen by Creative. Creative simultaneously stole their patented tech and sued Aureal for bogus patent infringement. Aureal "won" the Lawsuit, but ran out of money due to legal fees. Creative bought their assets, IP and funny declaration releasing them from any damages from lost patent lawsuit. Patents long expired, nowadays smallest $2 microcontroller can run it in real time.
- chaz6 6y agoI look forward to an AppImage for Linux.
- indentit 6y agoReminds me of Pragli [1] but without the animated avatars. How sustainable is this project? I see it's not open sourced, but there is no pricing page either? Also, how are the connections made, P2P or through a central intermediate server? [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22134329 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22134329
- zumachase 6y agoGood question: there's no pricing page at the moment because we'll always offer the current functionality for free. We have some enterprise features (freemium) that we're planning, but we also won't charge for those until lockdowns are lifted. Squawk is webrtc based (audio and data) so it's mostly p2p (except for tracking the swarm).
- upofadown 6y ago>... end-to-end encrypted... How do you verify that you are connected to the person you think you are connected to?
- zumachase 6y agoThere's a handshake before you accept a connection to anyone. Each peer generates a keypair and sends the public key to our servers (which they're authed with). On connection, peers receive the public key from the Squawk servers, and perform a handshake to verify their identity. This all happens p2p.
- ta17711771 6y agoWhat happens on failure?
- zumachase 6y agoA failure would indicate some sort of malicious actor, so the connection is logged and rejected.
- kitd 6y agoThis looks really good. Is it possible to mark yourself as away? I could see it might encourage the expectation to always be present on the receiving end.
- zumachase 6y agoIf you mute yourself, everyone else can see you muted. But statuses are on one of our upcoming sprints.
- OJFord 6y ago> mute yourself The homepage describes it has push-to-talk; is muting yourself distinct from not pushing?
- zumachase 6y agoYes, muting is on the receiving side: when you mute a group (or global mute) you won't hear anyone, and they can all see that you've muted and aren't there. The push-to-talk is on the sending side. So when you're not pushing, your mic is muted. And when you click the mute button, your speakers are muted.
- OJFord 6y agoOh I see, muting a group rather than yourself.
- deepspace 6y agoWhen I saw the capitalized Teams in the heading, I was excited for a minute, because this would be a great add-on for Microsoft Teams. Alas it appears to be 'yet another thing to install and run in the background'. Any plans to provide the functionality as an add-on for other communications apps?
- zumachase 6y agoHey - we're looking at integrations with other apps, but the walled gardens make that difficult unfortunately. I hear the frustration of downloading another thing - I've changed the landing page to make clear you can access in your browser at https://app.squawk.to https://app.squawk.to
- hdjriro 6y agoSugestion: volume normalization, compression (as in audio effect, not as in zip). A lot of people have shitty mics or change their distance.
- mosselman 6y agoSo I'd have this running and then anyone from work can just start talking to me and I'd hear it straight away? That sounds like a nightmare to be honest. How will you ever reach any level of concentration this way? Even the thought that someone could just start talking to you would probably ruin your chances at getting in any sort of flow. Also, it feels like only a small step away from a form of work surveillance. "Where were you? I was talking to you on Squawk". Unless my assumptions of what this is are completely wrong. There isn't much to go on on the page.
- zumachase 6y agoHey - the landing page is definitely in need of love. Part of this is cultural (you wouldn't constantly shout at your colleague in person across the desk) but there are per-group and global mute buttons when you need peace and quiet. Everyone else can see that you're muted.
- cryptozeus 6y agoThink of it this way, if you are sitting in the office then anyone can come talk to you in your cube. I think it can be great app if you keep it running during fix hours like 3 hrs in the afternoon when anyone can come and ping. Rest of the time you dont have to keep it on.
- zumachase 6y agoBingo.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- masukomi 6y agothink of it this way, most knowledge workers are finally free from being constantly interrupted by people who just feel like stopping by to chat, or don't really know or care that you're focusing on something. Now, there's a tool to bring that back! <sarcasm>It's only like 15 minutes to get back on task after every single interruption. That won't hamper productivity at all. Much more important for me to get instant answers and boredom reduction whenever i feel like it. </sarcasm>
- tycu 6y agoFinally, something better than Zoom.
- uoaei 6y agoHow is this any different from a local Mumble server?
- vhodges 6y agoPricing? Also: similar (from yesterday I think) https://www.walkie.chat/ https://www.walkie.chat/
- sholladay 6y agoHooray! I have been holding out hope for more push-to-talk apps on desktop platforms. It's such a step up from always-on listening. As an audio engineer, I grit my teeth every time there is microphone feedback, echo, or other audio issues on group calls, and these generally don't occur on PTT apps because everyone tends to be muted most of the time. And if it does start happening, the user more easily realizes what they did wrong because they correlate it with the button press. In fact, even if the user does not realize what they did wrong, others on the call can identify the source because "it's only happening when Jane speaks." I can't tell you how many times I've been on a call with feedback where the person who is causing it is complaining about it to the group without realizing it's their own fault and others on the call don't necessarily know, either. This never happens on PTT calls. There's also the obvious privacy benefits, as it avoids the issue where people speak without realizing they are unmuted. PTT is better in nearly every respect. I'm very excited about this. I do have some questions that the website doesn't answer for me: 1. What about screen sharing? Seeing the word "collaboration" implies to me that I should be able to do so, but it's unclear. In the screenshot of the app, I see an icon or two in the right-hand sidebar that might be relevant to this, but they seem kind of generic. 2. What about mobile devices? I routinely do Slack calls where one or two people are on their phone for various reasons. It would be useful to know if that is supported or will be at some point. 3. I want to know more about the encryption. As you're probably aware, there has been a lot of controversy over the security of Zoom. In particular, there is an ongoing lawsuit related to their false claims of end-to-end encryption. [1] I think any new product, especially a chat app, that claims to be end-to-end encrypted really needs to show us the details of its protocol and stack, and ideally open source as many parts of that as possible. Does it use the Signal protocol? The site says "Squawk groups are invite-only and end-to-end encrypted." But which parts are E2E encrypted? The group membership? The message content? The message metadata? Everything? Lastly, it would be great if you could add the app to Homebrew Cask, as it's my preferred way to download and manage apps on macOS. 1: https://gizmodo.com/zoom-accused-of-misrepresenting-security-measures-in-ne-1842756394 https://gizmodo.com/zoom-accused-of-misrepresenting-security...
- zumachase 6y agoGlad to see we're not the only PTT fans out there. 1. Screen sharing is next on our list, it's the thing that we want most ourselves. 2. This is definitely not mobile optimized. It does work-ish on mobile phones, but it maintains long-lived webrtc connections so it's not ideal (we ensure these are not transmitting when muted, but we have a keep alive protocol which ensures they don't die, and would be harsh on mobile batteries). 3. Squawk uses webrtc, which is e2e encrypted by default. Additionally, we don't use any SFUs so we never have the audio unencrypted. All link negotiation and audio transmission are done entirely p2p and thus completely e2e encrypted.
- pachico 6y agoI love it! Any plans to integrate it with Slack?
- getcrunk 6y agoHow does this compare to something like teamspeak?
- nonbirithm 6y agoHow does this compare against Zello?
- schafele 6y agoI really like the idea. Push to talk is a proven concept when a lot of people work together and should stay informed (e.g. fire fighters). I see a huge potential for it...
- grinich 6y agoHey @zumachase - was hoping to get in touch but the contact email on your homepage is bouncing. (hello@zumaltd.com)
- miki123211 6y agoSee also Zello. It doesn't have the e2e stuff afaik, but works on all major platforms, including mobile. They also have a native desktop app (not Electron). As far as I know, it's used a lot, mostly by drivers for Uber or similar services. I haven't used it for a couple of years now, but it's worth giving it a go.
- gavin_gee 6y agointeresting app for the "corridor conversations" that have been lost with everyone Working from Home. It definitely needs integration with other communications apps, as its important to know when to switch context from another medium to PTT. Seems like it becomes a feature for Slack, For Teams.
- zumachase 6y agoTypically, it's switching from PTT into another context: we often start short conversations, and then realize there's more work to be done and we slack the results of that to each other.
- numlocked 6y agoCool! Might give this a spin for our live-ops response team. You should fix your meta description tag on the landing page :) I just pasted it into slack and got a...less than useful preview.
- zumachase 6y agoOn it! Thanks
- gflarity 6y agoIs there a video of it in action?
- zumachase 6y agoThere's not at the moment. I will sort one out in the coming days (too late for our HN moment unfortunately). Apparently we're not the best marketers. But it's just like a walkie talkie: press the group you want to talk to, and everyone hears you.
- gflarity 6y agoFeedback: Where's the video demo? I don't want to install it to see it in action and decide if I want to install it.
- zumachase 6y agoMuch appreciated. That's highest priority for me. Misstep on our part.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jeremy_k 6y agoJust a heads up, but your header description appears to be from the template you used. "Aptonic app landing page template helps you easily create websites for mobile apps, product landing, promotion and many more." I linked to your landing page in Slack and that is what showed up
- jv22222 6y agoFYI Squawk team, there seems to be an issue with your main email. I tried to contact you can got this back: > Hello, > We're writing to let you know that the group you tried to contact (hello) may not exist, or you may not have permission to post messages to the group. A few more details on why you weren't able to post: > * You might have spelled or formatted the group name incorrectly. > * The owner of the group may have removed this group. > * You may need to join the group before receiving permission to post. > * This group may not be open to posting. Looks like google apps group configuration issue. Related support article: https://support.google.com/a/zumaltd.com/bin/topic.py?topic=25838 https://support.google.com/a/zumaltd.com/bin/topic.py?topic=...
- zumachase 6y agoThanks for that. G Suite groups are a pain, I'll look into it. Feel free to email me directly at chase@zumaltd.com
- nullc 6y agoWhy not mumble?
- Uhrheber 6y agoWebsite needs javascript to even display something -> ignored.