To use See Your Family Face to Face, sign in first.
This page explains how it works. The tool itself is inside your SeniorThrive account.
Video calls let you see the people in your Circle rather than just hear them. The page is called See Your Family Face to Face.
Where to find it
Open Family & Friends and choose it from there.
Why it is worth the small amount of bother
Seeing somebody carries information a phone call does not. Whether they look tired, whether the kitchen is tidy, whether a grandchild has grown. That runs in both directions, and it is a large part of why families worry less after a video call than after a phone call of the same length.
It is also better for anyone whose hearing is not what it was. Watching somebody's face while they talk does a surprising amount of the work, and it is the difference between following a conversation and nodding along to one.
Getting started
You will be asked for permission to use your camera and microphone the first time. That is your device asking, not SeniorThrive, and saying yes is what makes a video call possible at all.
If you have said no once and changed your mind, the permission can be turned back on in your device or browser settings.
If it does not work
Almost every video call problem is one of three things, in this order.
Nobody can hear you. Check whether you are muted, on the call and on your device.
Nobody can see you. Check the camera permission, and check that nothing is physically covering the lens, which happens more often than anyone admits.
Everything is stuttering. That is bandwidth. Move closer to the router, or turn your own camera off for a minute so the connection has less to carry. An audio-only conversation that works beats a video one that does not.
Ending the call and starting again fixes a startling proportion of the rest.
If it is still not working
Ring them the ordinary way and try the video another day. The conversation is the thing that matters, and it counts just as much over the phone.
Who you can call
The people in your Circle. This is not a way to reach strangers, and nobody outside your Circle can call you through it.