non-iOS to iOS video chat
June 3, 2019 6:49 AM   Subscribe

My spouse will be in Japan for several weeks while the rest of us stay home in the US mid-west and we'd like find the right way for us to keep in touch. Video chat seems like the right choice for the kids, but I don't know what the best tools are circa June 2019.

We'll be connecting from Android or PC to iOS, prefer not to use facebook, but are otherwise open to whatever free-ish options are easy and reliable. High security is not a concern. Thanks.
posted by roue to Computers & Internet (17 answers total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Signal is fully cross-platform and supports video chat.

Telegram is similar in terms of functionality but is not considered to be as secure as Signal.
posted by tobascodagama at 6:55 AM on June 3, 2019 [3 favorites]


Oh, Snapchat also supports video calling, but it's phone-only, unlike Signal and Telegram which have desktop clients.
posted by tobascodagama at 6:57 AM on June 3, 2019 [1 favorite]


Skype?
posted by ellieBOA at 7:00 AM on June 3, 2019 [3 favorites]


We just use Skype and it (mostly) works fine.
posted by The Toad at 7:01 AM on June 3, 2019 [2 favorites]


I have no problem using Google Hangouts from Asia to US for video calls. When we do them just within the US, it works fine from an iPad to an Android tablet.
posted by jillithd at 7:06 AM on June 3, 2019 [1 favorite]


I've never had issues with Google Hangouts (Android to iOS). Easy, simple.
posted by Aranquis at 7:14 AM on June 3, 2019 [1 favorite]


If it's just one device to one other device, I'd recommend Zoom.us, free/unlimited for that use case and works flawlessly on everything.
posted by matrixclown at 7:15 AM on June 3, 2019


Google Duo is google's simplified video chat app. (Google Hangouts is fine too, but later this year supposedly it's going to be separated into Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet because... well, I don't know why.)
posted by bluecore at 7:40 AM on June 3, 2019 [4 favorites]


Skype is pretty much the default app for this need.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:40 AM on June 3, 2019 [2 favorites]


My partner (Android) and I (iOS) use Google Duo.
posted by matildaben at 7:43 AM on June 3, 2019 [1 favorite]


Another reccy for signal.

When I was traveling internationally a few months ago, even if the bandwidth for video wasnt there, the audio quality of signal was much higher than pretty much anything else.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 7:44 AM on June 3, 2019 [3 favorites]


Whatsapp works great is free and cross platform.
posted by chasles at 10:43 AM on June 3, 2019 [1 favorite]


Signal
posted by terrapin at 11:21 AM on June 3, 2019


You can’t video call from WhatsApp for web.
posted by ellieBOA at 11:26 AM on June 3, 2019


MarcoPolo!!
posted by lazaruslong at 11:37 AM on June 3, 2019


I just used Discord's video chat and it was awesome, super high quality and never dropped. Prefer it a lot to Skype.
posted by yueliang at 4:10 PM on June 3, 2019


My wife and I use Google Hangouts in this situation (Japan<>US) all the time and it works great.
We originally used Skype and Hangouts was a big improvement over that.
posted by thefoxgod at 5:20 PM on June 3, 2019


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