Senior parents might not be as forthcoming as a project lead about the fact that the call quality sucks and that they can't hear half the things you say. Just a thought.

I spent the past 5+ years in jobs where I had to have multiple video calls per week. I used every tech imaginable, from those that cost five figures to the gratis ones. If these problems are solved, why is the experience universally terrible on all of them?

When I call my parents, it's over the plain old phone line, because I actually want to talk to them. Not seeing their faces on the screen is a small price to pay for not having each and every call turn into an impromptu debugging session.

I have the opposite problem. Call quality over cellular networks is always terrible. Even when you can hear each other, the quality is awful. I generally use voice over internet with something like signal.

I also find that Apple's FaceTime is the most consistently good and functional with little "can you hear me now".

I have the opposite problem. Call quality over cellular networks is always terrible. Even when you can hear each other, the quality is awful. I generally use voice over internet with something like signal.

What about a microphone array ?

Have you tried putting that both on your and your parents' locations ?

And what kind of internet you two are using ? and are the devices using wifi , or are wired ?