How a call is joined

Sign in first. A desk call is between you and the staff who look after the site. A family call is only for accounts that an administrator has marked as family. A normal member cannot open a family room, and a family member cannot pull strangers into it.

If you do not see Family in the menu, your account is not in that circle. Ask the person who runs the Hub. Do not share the room link with people outside it.

Open Family, or open a desk chat, and press the call button. The browser will ask for the camera and the microphone. Nothing is sent until you allow it. If you refuse, the other person still sees that you tried to join, but they will not see a picture.

People who are already signed in and online are added to the same room. The window does not start a second call. If someone is offline, Hub sends them an email with a link back to the page. They join the call that is already open.

You can leave at any time with Hang up. Closing the tab does the same after a short moment. Refreshing the page tries to put you back in the same room, the same way a desk call does.

Drag the call window around the page and resize it from any edge. Maximize fills the browser tab. Minimize puts the window back where it was. Double-click a camera to see that person large. They can do the same.

Each person can share their own screen. Your camera stays as its own tile. The shared screen is a second tile with your name on it. More than one person can share at the same time.

The radio button does not pipe the station through the call as a hidden recording. It starts the same station on each person's own player, so everyone hears the programme they already use on the Radio page. If you have not chosen a station yet, open Radio, press play, then come back and share.

A nudge is a short sound and a small cartoon, such as “where are you”. It is a tap on the shoulder. It is not a message that is stored, and it is not an advertisement.

Family and desk video are locked between the browsers on the call. The signalling that sets the call up is sealed before it is stored. Staff can see that a family call is happening and who was invited. They do not get a copy of the picture.

Do not use a call to ask people to watch something in exchange for money. Hub will not pay anyone for being on a call, and a call is never a place for an ad.