Too often in technology, we tend to focus on the grandiose: breakthrough hardware, hot new apps, ambitious new services.
But in day-to-day use, even the little things can have a big impact on the way we work. That’s especially true now, as the coronavirus pandemic has prompted a work-from-home revolution and made us rethink the tools we use.
Below are some of the small but thoughtful innovations we’ve come to appreciate most in 2020, from smart scheduling tricks to new ways of using your webcam. As pandemic life pushes on into 2021, these are the ideas and product features that can help make remote work a little more tolerable.
The agnostic meeting button
It’s a small thing, but at a time when tech giants are all pushing their own videoconferencing solutions with heavy-handed tactics (such as the giant “Add Google Meet” button in Google Calendar), Fantastical’s all-purpose meeting button is a breath of fresh air. The calendar app for Mac and iOS now automatically detects meetings from Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and several other services, then provides a handy “Join” button in your agenda view. It beats having to dig through the meeting details for a link, especially when you’re running late.
The makeshift webcam
In the early days of the pandemic, good webcams from companies such as Logitech were nearly impossible to get, leading to a glut of subpar alternatives from no-name brands. That’s when gadget makers stepped in, repurposing existing cameras as webcams. Canon released webcam support for its DSLR cameras in April, and other vendors soon followed, including Fujifilm, Olympus, Sony, and Nikon. Security camera maker Wyze also released experimental webcam firmware, as did GoPro for its Hero action cameras. If you lack the requisite hardware, you can even turn a smartphone into a webcam with programs such as NeuralCam Live and DroidCam.
Of course, you’ll still have to buy a tripod or some other mounting system—unless the goal is to accentuate your chin and nostrils—but the results will surely beat whatever camera your laptop has built in.
No ring light necessary
If you want to look a little better on Zoom calls, you could sink a lot of time and money into sophisticated lighting and higher-quality cameras. Or you could just head to Zoom’s video settings menu and click the “adjust for low light” checkbox, which automatically improves the brightness of your video to eliminate unsightly shadows. It’s the kind of obvious-in-hindsight feature that every videoconferencing app should have, and yet only Zoom does. (Google Meet also added automatic brightness correction this year, but only to its mobile apps.)
