Here comes yet another name on the overcrowded video conferencing market today. Despite strong competition, it has something to offer to users. If you feel that the features of Zoom or Slack are too rich for you and you need a simpler solution for free (or for an affordable price), iMind is quite worth a shot. This service may be less known than the competitors, but its simplicity is what might attract you.
Key Features
As with any decent conferencing service, iMind allows a bunch of people to join virtual meetings and communicate in different ways. The basic features include the following:
- Video communication. It shows the videos for up to 100 attendees, switching to the current speaker.
- Voice communication. If you don’t want to show your face or environment or are in a poor cellular coverage zone, you can go with your voice only.
- Built-in chat. There you can send messages to the entire group or to its certain members.
- Easy sign-up. Along with the traditional email-based account-creating method, you can authorize with your Google, Microsoft, or Apple account.
- Conference recording. You can record them without limitations, though the service recommends that you inform all the attendees that the talk is being recorded.
- Whoever receives the link from the administrator can join the meeting right in their web browser. They need to create an account, but, as said above, it’s as easy as one-two-three.
It works the same way on desktops/laptops and mobile devices. There is no mobile app for either Android or iOS, but there is no need for one.
As for security, iMind offers quite a set of features. Along with ubiquitous AES-256 encryption that keeps your talks confidential even on public unencrypted Wi-Fi, there is an anti-hack measure for email-based accounts. Instead of the regular password you enter each time, here you enter the single-use code that you receive on your email as you try to log in.
You can also have up to 10 rooms for free at the same time. Screen sharing is also supported with one tap or click. The video quality is up to Full HD (no 4K, but it’s not that crucial). The audio is very decent, with the noise cancellation feature.
When it comes to extra features, there are nearly none of them. You can choose virtual backgrounds for your video, but they don’t work on desktops and perform poorly on tablets, while on phones you just can’t find them. Anyway, most users in their iMind reviews say they wanted just lean and mean conferencing service, and this is what they get.
Conferencing and Chat for Business on Paid Tiers
Along with the basic free one (which is ad-supported, though not heavily), there are three more for different scales of business. Each of them adds more features that will be useful for businesses:
- pro (for small businesses) adds, among all, personal and group rooms, room URL’s, and custom branding;
- business (for not-so-small business) adds personal customer support, unlimited cloud storage for recordings, and WebDAV integration;
- enterprise (for big business) offers cloud localization and monitoring, as well as priority support.
But first you may want to try it for free. A conference may host up to 100 attendees, and the conference may last up to 40 hours. When it’s abandoned and re-entered, the countdown restarts. You have as much time as you want to test it in such a mode: there aren’t any limitations. As for recordings, while free accounts can’t enjoy the native cloud storage, you can connect third-party services, like Dropbox, OneDrive, or Google Drive.
Key Differences between iMind and Others
There are some features that are not that common among today’s video conferencing systems.The following are the most important to most users:
- No need to register for one or two calls. Just open the link in your browser and participate with your Google or Apple account.
- Single-use codes instead of passwords. This solution increases security and reduces the chance of being hacked.
- No mobile apps with new unfamiliar interfaces. It’s just what you need if your potential attendees aren’t that tech-savvy. This may lead to less smooth performance, but it’s way easier to understand for those not into technologies.
If you need more polished experience, you’ll probably prefer alternatives that dominate the market now. But iMind is also worth a shot if you need a video conferencing solution to just work and focus on the content of your conference.
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