Google Meet rolls out Green Room feature, will give users quick preview of settings before joining a meeting

Google Meet is rolling out Green Room, a feature that will give users a “quick preview” on how they will appear to others before entering a Google Meet video call. With this feature, the video-conferencing platform aims to give users a heads up on their settings and save them from potentially embarrassing situations like talking while their mic is off, or being the only one with the camera switched on.

"When a problem is detected, you’ll see a warning and tips for troubleshooting common issues, like granting your browser permission to use the microphone or camera," Google notes in a blog post. Google plans to address issues like an unintentionally muted microphone, a secondary display monitor with a missing headphone or speaker connection, other audio issues, such as poor sound quality, audio that is too loud, or microphone amplifying background noises.

Google notes that there is no end-user setting for the green room feature. Before users join a meeting, they should click the "Check your audio and video" button that will appear before joining a meeting. Once they click on the button, it will open a “green room,” where users can preview their audio and video. The screenshot shared by Google Meet reveals the preferred options users will see like microphone, speaker, and the camera. After users have checked the quality of the devices, they can click on the ‘Next’ button to confirm the settings.

Google has started started rolling out the green room feature and it will be available to all users within 15 days of the rollout. Green Room will be available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus users. It will also be available for G Suite Basic, Business, Education, Enterprise for Education, and Nonprofits customers.

Google Meet, in December 2020, started rolling out live captions in Spanish, French, German, and Portuguese will be available across all versions of Meet. It has also brought about improvements like blur backgrounds, custom backgrounds, noise cancellation, hand raising. Anybody with a Gmail account can invite up to 100 participants, and meet for up to 60 minutes per meeting for free.