Meet Hour Video Conferencing: Is the LTD Worth It?
At $39, sure, why not?
As a follow up on my recent post re: Sessions, where I mentioned Meet Hour as a possible alternative (note: affiliate links used in article):
I gave Meet Hour a provisional 5 stars on AppSumo since the team is exceptionally responsive and the tool has potential. Also, the initial reviews on it were very harsh. Here are more thoughts after upgrading to Tier 3:
I conferenced with a friend last night for 2 hours in part to test it out. Audio was very clear, and although we didn’t use our personal video most of the time, I streamed something for an hour and my friend was able to see and hear it just fine. I did have a spot where my mic glitched out and I needed to reenter the room to get it working again. Don’t know if that was me or Meet Hour.
The branding removal on MH is clunky and requires setting up a subdomain. The subdomain doesn’t automatically stick with everything and so sometimes you’ll be guided to share non subdomain links. The subdomain doesn’t work with the phone apps. In short, it’s a bit of a pain in the ass right now and not fluid in how it works with the interface. They did tell me they are working on improving this. 1
Related to this: Sub hosts need to be logged into the subdomain or they revert to a free account and that means they’ll have ads pop up. It’s not a smooth system so there’s a lot of room for error. When I tested my first host yesterday, the personal room was downgraded to free permissions even after logging in via the subdomain. I have reported this as a bug and was told they will fix this.
Whiteboard/notepad work but you must screenshare to get it started; I was told this was for security reasons. It’s weird and not intuitive. Once again, they said they’d look into improving this.
There is a TON of customization available, which is great, but sometimes the wording is not clear. For example: “Remove Meet Hour Branding: Activate/Deactivate” - does this deactivate the branding itself or does it turn off the removal of the branding?
Lots of little interface issues here and there - i.e., in adding a host, you need to first add the person as a contact, which isn’t clear, then select the contact to add the host, but the contact won’t show up until you reload the page.
Also missing are features such as breakout rooms and AI transcriptions, but we are told they are on the way.
On the positive, Meet Hour is VERY communicative and their support has gotten back to me right away in email. Chat support has been instantly available and very helpful. And real people too, not AIs that screen you before you hit a real person!
Meet Hour started out in 2020 and first branded itself as a free conferencing app that was ad supported. This would give us some hope that they are not fly by night, but they need to up their tech game to be a more reliable business solution.
Because of their 5-star, stellar support, I upgraded to Tier 3 in hopes they will improve. I think they need to add a developer who has a bit of a better grasp of usability, as while this is a full-featured service, Meet Hour is a bit overly complicated right now especially with all the little glitches and weirdness. It needs to be more seamless.
In short, I’ll say that Meet Hour seems to work, at least for one-on-one calls, but it’s a bit clunky and has a learning curve,
Given all that, with the intro price of $39 for the next two days, you can’t go too wrong grabbing at least a Tier 1 license.
For now, support has gotten back to me at lightning speed to recommend I turn off the links to download the desktop/mobile apps to make all this branding stuff more seamless. Here is their screenshot of the recommended settings:
