Louper v1.2 Has Arrived

We’re excited to share the new features and improvements to Louper that we’ve made in recent weeks. All the enhancements are included in Louper 1.2.1 and the update is automatic - meaning that you don’t have to do anything (apart from refresh your Louper dashboard page if you are already logged in) to work with the new version.

New

Voice-only rooms

When enabled, you will only be prompted for microphone access when joining a room. Great for saving bandwidth, or if you’re suffering from video call fatigue. Voice-only chat can be configured in your room’s settings.

Active Speaker Panel defaults to ‘off’

The Active Speaker Panel (ASP) is the panel that appears at the top of the participant / viewer list in the left sidebar of a room. It functions the same way that the ASP panel does in standard video conferencing apps, switching between participants to show the ‘currently speaking’ participant.

Whilst convenient and space-saving, it has its drawbacks for certain Louper use cases. For rooms with many participants, the switching between the various participants in the ASP can be distracting and moves focus away from the stream.

So, taking into account user feedback and our own UI ethos, we’ve turned the ASP off for all existing rooms. New rooms will also have the ASP setting turned off. For users that do want to keep the ASP visible in their rooms, this can be turned on in the ‘Communication’ section of your room’s settings.

Change camera and microphone when inside room

Switch to a different webcam and microphone from the ones you chose initially when entering a room. Great if you accidentally selected the incorrect devices or want to switch to a different device without leaving and rejoining the room.

Connection Tester

Easily diagnose connection issues by running a connection test inside your room to determine if firewall or device issues are present. Learn more about the Connection Tester here.

Improved

• Room settings are configured in a settings modal rather than a separate page.
• Room type (Free, Plus or Pro) is shown in the dashboard.
• We’ve added a room info modal, so users on mobile can access all the same room info that users can on desktop.
• More graceful room exit when room time limit is reach and when a participant is removed from a room by a host.
• Tooltips added to buttons inside rooms.
• Performance enhancements for Firefox and Chrome users on iOS / iPad.

We look forward to you experiencing these new features. Please share your feedback with us and let us know what you’d like to see next.