Zoom is useless

[sorka]

First, it makes me sign in every single time I open the app even if I was in it just a few seconds earlier and even if I click remember this device. I still have to select my company domain and then login with my email and password.

Secondly, why does the video me stop transmitting while I'm driving?

On the plus side, I can at least text myself a link and then click on it in the SMS app on the display and it will launch zoom with that link.

 

[Operator64]

First, it makes me sign in every single time I open the app even if I was in it just a few seconds earlier and even if I click remember this device. I still have to select my company domain and then login with my email and password.

Secondly, why does the video me stop transmitting while I'm driving?

On the plus side, I can at least text myself a link and then click on it in the SMS app on the display and it will launch zoom with that link.

gee let me guess why the video would stop while driving……SAFETY …..LAWS…….. COMMON SENSE

 

[Yelobird]

I would rate useless as any company app that allows random access from a mobile IP without password or one that lets you Drive while using a video conferencing tool..

 

[sorka]

gee let me guess why the video would stop while driving……SAFETY …..LAWS…….. COMMON SENSE

You did read my post, right? I asked why the video of myself would stop broadcasting, NOT why wouldn't I be able to see the video of others. How is it a safety concern for those not in a moving vehicle to see ME. I totally get why I can't see them. That wasn't what I was complaining about.

 

[sorka]

I would rate useless as any company app that allows random access from a mobile IP without password or one that lets you Drive while using a video conferencing tool..

Not following. Can you elaborate on what you mean?

 

[italian bread]

You did read my post, right? I asked the video of myself would stop broadcasting, NOT why wouldn't I be able to see the video of others. How is it a safety concern for those not in a moving vehicle to see ME. I totally get why I can't see them. That wasn't what I was complaining about.

That does sound illogical. Are they using the same camera for monitoring driver attention? If so, it’s a shortcoming of tacking on a feature as an afterthought than having a dedicated camera to do the job. Still, being able to see people move in your zoom feed while you’re busy driving sounds like poor planning as well.

 

[sorka]

That does sound illogical. Are they using the same camera for monitoring driver attention? If so, it’s a shortcoming of tacking on a feature as an afterthought than having a dedicated camera to do the job. Still, being able to see people move in your zoom feed while you’re busy driving sounds like poor planning as well.

I could see that being a technical limitation that would require them to stop transmitting video over zoom, but do you really think that's the reason? I'd be shocked if the system is limited technically that requires mutually exclusive access to the video stream.

In no way was I implying that I should be able to see others in the zoom meeting why I'm driving.

I think the most likely explanation is that they didn't think about it and that they just kill video in both directions when the car is moving.

 

[sorka]

What's far more distracting is having to go through a multi step sign in each time you enter the app even when you click "keep me signed in".

 

[Operator64]

What's far more distracting is having to go through a multi step sign in each time you enter the app even when you click "keep me signed in".

I guess that would fall under the numerous distracted while parked laws popping up across the nation.

 

[BitJam]

I could see that being a technical limitation that would require them to stop transmitting video over zoom, but do you really think that's the reason? I'd be shocked if the system is limited technically that requires mutually exclusive access to the video stream.

Transmitting/receiving video could max out the cell connection which is used for navigation, voice commands, and maybe some other things. IMO disabling the outgoing video while you drive is a probably a good idea from a cost/benefit perspective.

 

[sorka]

Transmitting/receiving video could max out the cell connection which is used for navigation, voice commands, and maybe some other things. IMO disabling the outgoing video while you drive is a probably a good idea from a cost/benefit perspective.

It's a good thought but I've looked at the data rate conntected to my hotpsot via wifi while driving/navigating and unless music is streaming, the data is often 0 kbs and occasionally blips to a couple 10s of kbs.

 

[Yelobird]

The in car camera is used as a Safety feature to monitor the driver While driving. They are Not going to disable the safety driving monitor so your work friends can watch you drive. when you Park, sure put on a show for the, as them camera is not needed in park.

 

[MP3Mike]

The in car camera is used as a Safety feature to monitor the driver While driving. They are Not going to disable the safety driving monitor so your work friends can watch you drive. when you Park, sure put on a show for the, as them camera is not needed in park.

That is no reason. They have no problem streaming four cameras to the MCU while you are driving for the dashcam feature, so there is no reason they couldn't stream the interior camera as well. (Ok, maybe there isn't enough bandwidth for five cameras, in which case they should let you know that you could disable the dashcam, or just one camera of it, to be able to keep Zoom transmitting your camera while you drive.)

 

[KArnold]

I'd guess it's more from a CPU utilization perspective. Ever watch utilization for Zoom while on a PC? It's a huge resource hog, particularly processor usage. Much of that is the video processing I'd guess but I've never checked while doing audio only.

 

[sorka]

The in car camera is used as a Safety feature to monitor the driver While driving. They are Not going to disable the safety driving monitor so your work friends can watch you drive. when you Park, sure put on a show for the, as them camera is not needed in park.

You're assuming that Tesla can't tap into the same camera stream for multiple purposes. It might be true but if so, it's extremely limiting and hard to believe given how beefy their hardware is.

 

[sorka]

That is no reason. They have no problem streaming four cameras to the MCU while you are driving for the dashcam feature, so there is no reason they couldn't stream the interior camera as well. (Ok, maybe there isn't enough bandwidth for five cameras, in which case they should let you know that you could disable the dashcam, or just one camera of it, to be able to keep Zoom transmitting your camera while you drive.)

Some good thoughts. Hopefully this is something they can fix. However, I suspect it's not in their interest to do so as it will increase data usage substantially through the LTE connection.

 

[MP3Mike]

However, I suspect it's not in their interest to do so as it will increase data usage substantially through the LTE connection.

Would it really use that much more bandwidth than say streaming a Netflix movie? Yeah, I know you can't do that while driving, but when you are paying for premium connectivity, you expect to be able to use it. (But they do limit watching live sentry cam video over LTE to a few minutes per day.) Of course if that was the issue, then it should still be able to send your video if you are providing your own hotspot. (Just like you can watch unlimited live sentry video if you do so.)

I don't have this update yet, but I suspect one theory is easy to test. While parked and using Zoom, does the dashcam still record all 4 video feeds? If so, that eliminates the likely hood that it is a bandwidth issue between the FSD computer and the MCU.

 

[cowleggies]

Would it really use that much more bandwidth than say streaming a Netflix movie? Yeah, I know you can't do that while driving, but when you are paying for premium connectivity, you expect to be able to use it. (But they do limit watching live sentry cam video over LTE to a few minutes per day.)

Streaming a video is almost exclusively downlink-only data (receiving data from server) - if you're on a Zoom call and transmitting camera feed, you're using a ton of uplink to send that feed. Uplink is considerably more "expensive" from a bandwidth perspective over cellular, and, for the same reason they limit you watching live sentry feed, I'm sure their terms of use with AT&T would not allow for this.

Couple that with the safety concerns/potential bad PR for Tesla if someone were to get into an accident while driving distracted participating in a video call, it's easy to see why they don't allow this functionality.

 

[cowleggies]

You're assuming that Tesla can't tap into the same camera stream for multiple purposes. It might be true but if so, it's extremely limiting and hard to believe given how beefy their hardware is.

There's quite a few reasons this is difficult to do, application permissions and stream encoding being two of the largest ones. It helps to remember that at the end of the day, the MCU is running Linux - if you were to try to use your webcam within multiple applications on your computer at the same time, you would run into this same issue. There's a whole segment of software like Anycam on desktop platforms that's designed to get around this limitation, by duplicating the stream out of your webcam into multiple "virtual" webcams, but this does require some processing overhead.

In short, it's theoretically "possible" but not really practical to do in-car.

 

[sorka]

Streaming a video is almost exclusively downlink-only data (receiving data from server) - if you're on a Zoom call and transmitting camera feed, you're using a ton of uplink to send that feed. Uplink is considerably more "expensive" from a bandwidth perspective over cellular, and, for the same reason they limit you watching live sentry feed, I'm sure their terms of use with AT&T would not allow for this.

Couple that with the safety concerns/potential bad PR for Tesla if someone were to get into an accident while driving distracted participating in a video call, it's easy to see why they don't allow this functionality.

Sure but it works while you're parked and there's very little uplink data being transmitted while you're driving.