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Ask HN: Living room video conferencing for older adults

by twoslide on 12/17/24, 5:28 PM with 2 comments

Hi HN - I'm looking for suggestions that will allow me to video conference with aging parents as easily and naturally as possible. Ideal solution would have little configuration, easy to answer, and would allow us to chat using a living room TV and webcam with auto-tracking. Ideally multiple people at each side could participate. Using mobile phones and WhatsApp is getting tiring and isn't a very natural conversation. Thanks for any ideas!

by doctoboggan on 12/17/24, 5:39 PM
Using the "continuity camera" feature of the apple ecosystem will let you FaceTime on your TV (using Apple TV and your iPhone as the camera). See here:
https://support.apple.com/guide/tv/start-or-join-a-facetime-...
If both parties already have an Apple TV and iPhones this is definitely something easy to try. Once the work of configuring the iPhone as the apple tv's continuity camera is set up the actual FaceTime calls are pretty easy to setup on the TV.
by sfmz on 12/17/24, 5:37 PM
Used Meta Portal TV might be an option https://www.meta.com/portal/products/portal-tv/