What’s New 🚨

Event Rooms (BETA)

Introducing a new way to meet for groups of up to 100 people!

We know that hosting a meeting with a large number of participants requires a different approach than smaller meetings. With Event Rooms, we’ve introduced a new room interface and additional permissions to help facilitate effective communication. Most notably, Event Rooms feature a Stage area, where people from the audience can take the stage and address the crowd.

Note: Only event attendees that use the Take the stage button in the bottom left of the meet window can move to the stage and speak with the audience. Those not on the stage cannot use their camera or microphone, but can still communicate using GIF and emoji reactions or messages.

Additionally, Event Room admins have the ability to disable various feature sets (Vibes, Power-Ups, Annotations) during an event by using the Audience Settings menu in the top-right of the meet window. This means that it’s possible to shape the room environment to fit the style of event by limiting features that might be counterproductive or distracting.

Where to find it: Create a new room and set the Room Type to Event

Note: This feature is still in Beta. Please help us continue to improve larger meeting support by sharing your feedback and letting us know if you’re experiencing any issues. You can email us at support@around.co.

Resources: How to use an Event Room (BETA)

Messages

Another one of your most requested features is here!

Instead of user messages disappearing after a little time, they now persist for the duration of the meeting in our Messages panel. Additionally, users can pin important messages to their avatar by right-clicking on an active message (or opening the menu to the left of a past message) and selecting Pin message to avatar.

Where to find it: Click the messages icon (💬) at bottom of the meet window

Note: Message history is not visible during recording playback.

Power-Ups

While talking with users, we often hear that Around’s simple UI is part of why they fell in love with the product. As we’ve been rapidly adding many new features to Around, this has left the meet window feeling a bit cluttered for some. The new Power-Ups menu consolidates all of the Vibes, Games and Productivity features into one place and reduces the number of menu toggles in the meet window.

Where to find it: During a meeting, click the Power-Ups button in the bottom right of the meet window.

Echo Prevention for iOS

Now available to iOS users, Echo Prevention allows multiple people to be on the same call in the same physical space without creating unwanted echo. This means that you can use your own device wherever you are, while leaving your headphones in your bag. To learn more about how Echo Prevention works, watch the tutorial or read our guide.

Where to find it: Join a meeting while using the same Wi-Fi as another meeting participant

Note: Support for Android is coming soon

Mobile UI Redesign

This is more than just a fresh coat of paint. Our mobile app has received an interface overhaul to make participating in a meeting feel more natural and intuitive. Additionally, mobile users will never miss a reaction with the added Reactions Feed, which shows GIF and emoji reactions for every participant, even when their video circle isn't currently visible.

Where to find it: Visit around.co/download from your mobile device to download the app

Quality and Performance Updates 🌟

Improvements

• Windows UI: Cutting corners isn’t always a bad thing. Our team has polished the Windows app – and rounded a few edges – to make it more consistent with other platforms
• Recording Visibility: We’ve made it easier to start a recording and view existing recordings by adding corresponding buttons in the Lobby and meet window
• Auto-Volume: For those that like that extra bit of control, it’s now possible to disable Around’s automatic microphone volume adjustment. From the Lobby, click your avatar and select Preferences → Audio → Automatically adjust microphone volume to adjust
• Slack Integration: We’ve rebuilt this to fix some common issues and prepare for future improvements

Fixes

Here are some of the highlights:

• Fixed an Echo Prevention bug that would prevent a user from leaving and then successfully rejoining an Echo Prevention Group during the same meeting
• Windows: Right-clicking on your avatar will no longer change your video filter

What’s Coming 🚴‍♀️

As always, your feedback is instrumental in helping us build a product that you'll continue to love far into the future. With the introduction of Event Mode, we’d love to hear about your experience with this feature along with how we can make it even better. Please let us know by reaching out to support@around.co.

That's all for now! Ping us at support@around.co if you run into any issues or just want to say Привіт. 🇺🇦