Staying social whilst staying at home

For those in countries affected by the global pandemic, we are all staying and working from home, having this strange experience of no socialising with family and friends outside of our households. Our smartphones have become a very useful tool for keeping in touch with people and helping us to stay connected with the outside world. With the Pro1 for example, we have been using a variety of video calling apps and utilising the sliding screen, which is an ideal viewing angle for both virtual work and social face to face interactions. We’ve been using the following apps:

• Google Duo (supplier meetings)
• Zoom (daily team calls)
• WhatsApp video (video chat with friends and family)
• Skype (video chat with family)
• House Party (letting your hair down with your mates)

Catching up with friends and family

One of our favorite apps at the moment is ‘House Party’. This app allows you to chat with up to 8 people at the same time, and you can also play games such as ‘Heads Up’, ‘Trivia’ and ‘Quick Draw’. Quick Draw works especially well on the Pro1 because the large 5.99 inch screen gives you loads of room to perfect your drawing skills, and see everyone in the ‘room’ at the same time. We have been using it to host our own ‘virtual house parties’ on the Pro1 whilst staying at home. It’s a great way to socialise with friends and family, and surprisingly it really does make you forget (to an extent) that you are even self-isolating. 

Unrelated to the Pro1, we’ve been finding it especially entertaining trying to teach our parents and grandparents how to join a video call, and then trying to explain to them how to hold the phone so that we aren’t just staring at the ceiling. For most, this will probably be work in progress. Seeing as our conversations will now revolve around technology for the foreseeable future older generations will undoubtedly pick it up sooner or later.  

The virtual team talk 

For team F(x)tec, we have been using our Pro1 to host our daily virtual meetings and to collaborate via screen sharing on work as we would usually in the office. From a business point of view, this has been essential in helping us to maintain communication and work closely with every member of the team. With split screen multitasking, we can work on tasks and edit documents collaboratively in real time whilst on our Zoom call.