Your first call

In this guide we’ll asume that you have setup your own Rooms instance and that you have a basic understanding of how Rooms works. If you haven’t done this yet, please follow the Getting Started Guide first.

Before we join the room, let’s make sure that Audio and Video-Settings are correct.

Audio and Video Settings#

Before you join a room, you should check your audio and video settings. You can do this by clicking on the sliders icon above the room name input field (see screenshot below).

On the left side of the settings dialog, you can switch between Audio and Video settings. Depending on your permissions (i.e. if you are the owner or as a guest have the permissions) you also see additional settings there.

Audio Settings#

Let’s focus on the audio settings first. You should see something like this if you have the audio tap selected:

Audio Input Device

Select the audio input device you want to use. This is usually your microphone. The drop down list contains all available audio input devices. On Windows, this is usually something like “Microphone (Realtek Audio)” or “Microphone (Logitech Webcam)”. On Mac, this is usually something like “Internal Microphone” or “Airpods …”.

Audio Output Device

Select the audio output device you want to use. This is usually your speakers or headphones. The drop down list contains all available audio output devices. On Windows, this is usually something like “Speakers (Realtek Audio)” or " Headphones (Logitech Webcam)". On Mac, this is usually something like “Internal Speakers” or “Airpods …”.

Input Volume

Adjust the input volume of your microphone. This is useful if your microphone is too loud or too quiet. You can adjust the volume by moving the slider to the left or right.

Output Volume

Adjust the output volume of your speakers or headphones. This is useful if the sound is too loud or too quiet. You can adjust the volume by moving the slider to the left or right.

Volume Gate

Rooms automatically tries to avoid that noise from your environment or cheap microphones is transmitted to the other participants. The volume gate is the threshold at which the microphone is activated. If the volume is below the gate, the microphone is muted. If the volume is above the gate, the microphone is activated. You can adjust the volume gate by moving the slider to the left or right.

Automatic Gain Control

If you activate this toggle, Rooms will automatically adjust the volume of your microphone to avoid that you are too loud or too quiet. This is useful if you move around or if you have a cheap microphone that is not very stable in terms of volume.

Voice Activity Detection

If you activate this toggle, Rooms will use AI to identify if you are speaking or not. If you are not speaking, the microphone is muted. This is useful if you have a lot of background noise or if you are in a noisy environment.

Echo Cancellation

If you activate this toggle, Rooms will try to avoid that the sound from your speakers is transmitted back to the microphone. This is useful if you have a cheap microphone or if you have your speakers very loud.

Noise Suppression

If you activate this toggle, Rooms will try to suppress background noise. This is useful if you are in a noisy environment or if you have a cheap microphone.

Video Settings#

The next tab are the video settings. Here you can setup the webcam you want to use for video. You should see something like this:

Video Device

Select the video device you want to use. This is usually your webcam. The drop down list contains all available video devices. On Windows, this is usually something like “Logitech Webcam” or “Integrated Webcam”. On Mac, this is usually something like “FaceTime HD Camera” or “Logitech Webcam”.

Start Cam

Click this button to start the selected webcam to verify that it is working correctly.

Creating/Joining a Room#

If you have read the Basic Concepts guide, you know that Rooms is organized in rooms. While in other video conferencing tools the primary dimension is time and date, in Rooms it is the room. You can create a room for a specific purpose, like a meeting, a brainstorming session, a game or just to hang out as long as you like.

If your Rooms instance is setup, opening the URL to your Rooms instance (e.g. https://talk.rooms.chat) will show you something like this (depending on weather you have customized your Rooms instance):

In Rooms, we don’t actually create a room, we just join it. If the room does not exist, it will be created automatically by the server, and you will be the first person in the room. If the room already exists, you will join the room and see the other people that are in the room.

Enter a name of the Room you want to join or create and press the “Join Room” button. Some example of room names that we use are coffee-break, we-hate-to-eat-alone, lets-play-a-game, devs, marketing or whatever comes into your mind.

For this guide, I have chosen Coffee Break. After joining the room, you will see the user interface of Rooms.

Inviting Others#

Once you are in the room, you can invite others to join you. You can do this by sharing the room name with them. You can also create a link to the room and share this link with others. Click on the Copy Invite Link button to copy the link to the clipboard. The link is basically just this format: https://{subdomain}.rooms.chat/{room-name}, so if your instance is talk.rooms.chat and your room is coffee-break, the link would be https://talk.rooms.chat/coffee-break.

Use whatever way you prefer to share the link with others. They just open the link in their Browser, optionally enter their name and join the room.

Next Steps#

That’s it, you have successfully joined your first room in Rooms. You can now start using the room for a quick chat, a brainstorming session, a meeting or just to hang out.

Rooms has many more features, like a whiteboard, a chat, screen sharing and many more. Navigate to our manual to learn more about the features of Rooms.