Today, a video call means something a little different to everyone. Some think Skype, Facetime or Google Hangouts. For others, it’s WebEx or GoToMeeting. Those working in corporate environments might think of expensive, fancy telepresence conference systems in specialized conference rooms. In each case, some mix of pre-arranged relationships, downloads, specialized equipment or a lot of cash are required.
At vLine, we think a video call means making one click. That’s it. We believe video calls should be simple, fast, and affordable. WebRTC is the catalyst for democratizing video calls and vLine is at the forefront of making video calls accessible to all.
The vLine Telepresence System
The picture above illustrates one example of why we think video calls are on the path to ubiquity. It’s our high quality, reliable telepresence system that connects our office with anyone who wants to start a video call. It uses 3 pieces of hardware and our free vLine link service.
As you can see, this system is not a fancy telepresence system that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars but rather a bookmarked vLine link in the browser that runs all day overlooking our work area. Anyone working remotely can hop in and out any time they want to communicate with the office.
There are three reasons we think this set-up is an indicator of the great things to come for video calls:
1. Easy to use. We send someone a link and they are instantly connected.
2. Affordable to deploy. Total cost of this system: $1117.93. The parts include:
- C920 logitech camera ($69.95)
- MXL AC404 USB Conferencing Microphone ($70.98)
- Chromebox  ($329)
- 50-inch TVÂ ($648)
- vLine link (FREE)
3. Plug and play. No fancy degrees required.
We recently had a visit from a representative at a top carrier who was blown away by the quality of our platform, including our telepresence system described above. “It just works,” he said. This was high praise and the reaction we aim for with our offering.
We are already seeing vLine users in the real world starting to use the vLine link as an always-on conference room. This is a great example of a use case that was not imaginable or possible before WebRTC and the democratization of real-time video calls.
Do you have other novel ideas for ubiquitous real-time video? Leave a comment or reach out to us at [email protected] or @vlineinc.