I miss remote work when we didn't have to go on video all the time. Seeing myself/other people in a video chat is exhausting, and the non-verbal cues are often delayed so they lose meaning entirely. Just give me low latency voice again, please.
Our team culture defaults to video off for most recurring calls, it's more relaxing and less exhausting. When there's something really important to discuss, or an exec/client meeting we'll turn on video.
been remote since 2015 and outside of intimate meetings with small groups of people, and/or introductions, pretty much everywhere has been 100% no camera.
part of it was working for F500 multinationals, where the PM is in Mexico City, technical staff are in Chile, and engineering is in Canada and California. Just audio works fine, but 10 people with cameras and things get laggy...
At my previous job during pandemic we usually communicated audio only. At my current job we most of the time use video as well. It is a big big improvement. Just a few days ago we had to have an audio-only call with a supplier, who said such was their policy. It was super annoying not being able to see them. It is much harder to get cues about for example how certain they are when saying something.
I have to agree with this, I find no video much more exhausting and difficult to follow.
I do have quite a few people that are non native English speakers that though not really difficult to understand, have great english and don't have very thick accents, does still up the difficulty slightly. Most of them also don't have the greatest audio setups (but not the worst, often plugin headsets with the dangly mics).
First thing to do in a conference is disabling yourselfs stream. It doesnt help in any way after the first 10 seconds. I cant understand why any manufactorer added those, except to fulfill narcisstic tendencies.
