Google Meet has new ‘gentle’ notifications & custom recommendations feature

Ever since the pandemic started Google Meet and Zoom have become our constant companions. The entire world shifted to the virtual realm even educational institutes and companies. Due to the heavy dependence on these video conferencing apps, they had to constantly add new features to make sure users have a seamless experience.

Currently, Google Meet is also adding what Google refers to as “gentle quality notifications,” which will provide users with advice on how to enhance their performance and call quality.

Further Details

The app starts with “gentle notifications,” which display as a bubble and red dot over the “More options” button in the revised bottom bar, adjacent to “End call.” Users are directed to the existing “Troubleshooting & Help” menu.

Meet will then provide “specific ideas on how to improve the quality of their call,” such as “plug in your charger.” The dynamic list of recommendations is based on battery level, bandwidth and network connection, and presentation state, and replaces general ones.

Finally, Google will provide one-click quick steps to help Meet users conserve resources:

“These can include switching settings to use less CPU or network bandwidth, or adding closed captions to assist with understanding audio.”

These quality recommendations from Google Meet are now trickling out to all Workspace clients. Workspace administrators may now see and troubleshoot instances where users were unable to join calls. This will cover a wide variety of cases such as joining a call after maximum capacity is reached, re-join a call after previously being removed or their account was automatically denied due to prior abuse, join a call but was denied entry by a participant already in the call and join a call, but the request timed out because nobody in the call responded. The new features seem to be a step in the right direction for improving call quality. Hopefully, once the features are fully rolled out the feedback data shared will help Google come up with even more features.