My company used WebEx and I could make it dial me and start up my conference line without having to go through all the regular pin entry stuff. Now we're using Lync (Skype for business) which is similar although tragically buggy. That can also dial me and sends notifications if you hook it up.
The key for these kind of apps is cost and reliability. Seems like they're advertising substantial cost reductions and better quality. If either one is true they'll likely make out really well.
WebEx wasn't as convenient but at least it worked correctly the vast majority of the time.
You answered yourself - no, quality is not life and death (at least not fast death) for this product. :)
When there's a rare issue, its usually a headset not working, which is probably more a user or windows problem.
My company has about 4000 users in 100+ countries so maybe it's bandwidth/scale in part. i see a lot of stuff like skypefb crashes or doesn't render correctly when you try to screen share, etc especially internationally.
Not 100% certain part of it isn't due to us cheaping out on infrastructure to run it.
Chime is the absolute good step in the right direction, however we will need need a layer on top to solve for all conference call systems.
There are three pieces that needs to be figured out to make this work well:
1. How do you deal with (non?) presence? Are you joining from the AV hardware? 2. How do you deal with PSTN? 3. How do you deal with other VoIP solutions out there.
I have a few ideas on this, especially on #2.
ie, I'm in someone's Chime/webex, and I need to join a different one. Also does it seamlessly join multiple connections - one benefit of Webex is that I can start my meeting on the iPhone while leaving a meeting room so that others can hop on, and then have my laptop join later so I can share my screen when I hit my desk.
WebEx has (sort of) that capability. There is an option for it to call you when you join a meeting.
1. Make it so meeting codes are strictly forbidden from having repeating digits, by construction.
2. Make it so that when entering meeting codes, if you think you see repeated digits, consider it just one instance of that digit.
The cell system does not use literal DMTF tones to dial calls; those are played by the phone itself for the user's benefit. If the cell system used DMTF for numeric signalling, we'd all be dialing a lot more wrong numbers. (And we'd all groan when we got a new line with a number with repeated digits in it....) Heck, even on VOIP systems very well connected to the internet, I've had trouble entering 9-12 digit codes without the remote system becoming convinced I'd actually entered a 11-15 digit code. I've gotten a few strange looks before for the way I push the buttons for the codes as rapidly as possible, because, ironically, the human intuition here is exactly backwards; you intuitively think that if the remote system isn't understanding your numbers you should press the number "longer" and harder, but that actually increases the chances of the system hearing multiple instances of that number. You actually want to pound the number buttons as quickly as possible. You still can't deal with the entire number being dropped, but it's still your best chance sometimes.
....
'course, there's probably some patent out that this is in violation of. In which case you are authorized and even encouraged to use this post as part of a defense that this technique is Obvious to One Skilled in the Art. I'm not a telecom engineer.
As someone who works in video conferencing, this is often very broken. The are all kinds of compatibility issues and crappy UX. One of our core selling points is getting room systems into online meetings.
Hrm, SIP URIs maybe? https://www.wikiwand.com/en/SIP_URI_scheme
As you suggest for a physical meeting or when people have back to back meetings, it would quickly get annoying.
I wonder if this also reflects that calendar apps still suck.
With a smart phone that would pretty well via a push notification or an actual call, but not sure how that would work when you want a join a meeting from a physical meeting room with its own AV system. I'm sure there is a way to get that set up.