Intro, Info & Help
Hi! I'm Craig. Welcome to my Connexense project.
 
While big-tech gives us free comms channels so they can earn from our private and personal data, I don't want my video conference/calls being surveilled.
 
So I've built Connexense for people who feel the same way. One-to-one video calls, large group conferences, even live broadcast webinar events can all be made without recording any of the meta data that internet activity inevitably generates.
 
Connexense stores your profile and preference info securely and completely disregards all meta data
Starting a call
 
You start a call by creating a server at the plain URL - https://connexense.com .
 
Both webcam and microphone are required, so start them first, give yourself a screen-name and hit Connect. This creates a compartmented server and assigns it a unique id which others will use to connect to you.
 
Connexense provides easy ways to send out the server's URL [connexense.com/?id=uniqueId] by email, SMS or push notification and it also copies the URL to your system clipboard so you can easily paste and send it by any other messaging app.
Joining a call
 
By email, notification or messaging app, you'll receive an invitation containing the server's URL - https://connexense.com/?id=uniqueId.
 
Point your browser there, start your webcam and mike, give yourself a screen-name and hit Connect.
Camera Setup
 
When your webcam starts, you'll see a drop-down list for selecting available cameras and the option to turn camera video off.
 
Choose 2k (720p) for calls and webinars, optionally choose 4k (1080p) for broadcasting live.
 
Select "Virtual Background" to replace the background of your video with an image from our collection, or upload your own if you are logged in.
 
When you're ready, hit Connect.
Server Admin
 
When you start a server you become its administrator and have a few extra controls available in the side menu.
 
Screen-share
Replace your video stream by selecting an application window or browser tab to share instead.
 
Presentation view
Presentation view gathers everyone in one room, where only the presenter's video is visible. When the presentation ends, everyone returns to the rooms they were in.
 
People and Rooms
Rooms are created in the People menu. Select the number of rooms you want and hit Confirm. Everyone is presented with a choice of rooms to join for interaction in smaller groups.
 
To end the multiple-rooms session, select 1 room to gather everyone together again.
Texting
 
The chat-icon in the side menu presents a simple texting app, available to everyone, where text messages can be sent to all.
Connexense Account
 
A Connexense account is not required to start a server or join a call, but registered users can do much more:
  • Use a contacts list to more easily send the server ID to your contacts.
     
  • Send / receive push notifications to call contacts or receive calls.
     
  • Schedule Webinar Events - reserve and self-distribute a server ID which you will use to broacast a webinar event at a specified date and time.
     
  • Upload an image to use as your unique virtual background.
     
  • Use the Video Chat Plugin on your website.
Tech
 
For techies: Connexense is a WebRTC Selective Forwarding Unit (SFU) running Node.js on Ubuntu, using node-wrtc to stream media and data between server and client, facilitating compartmented chat servers with up to 32 participants in each.
Critique and Collaboration
 
This is the 4th Connexense release - Beta 1.3.
 
Beta 1.2 added the scheduled webinar events functionality in which an otherwise regular conference call is viewed by a public audience which receives video and audio and can participate in text but does not stream media themselves. This facilitates live broadcast of presentations, interviews, debates and the like.
 
New in this release are various tweaks and the 1st version of the Video Chat Plugin for Websites.
 
Development is ongoing and your feedback is much appreciated. Tell me whatever comes to mind when you're on Connexense, and don't hold back. I'll appreciate your insights and, well, the goal is to make Connexense great for everyone.
 
And if you'de like to work with me on all this, call me on Connexense or just email me at support at connexense dot com
 
Craig.
Enjoy!