Channel conferences are audio/video calls attached to the active channel. The Call button in the channel topic bar opens the antechamber — the screen you arrive at before you are inside.
Channel Indicator
When a channel has an active conference, the Call control shows a live badge with state, participant count and elapsed time. The info button opens a summary with participants, current speaker when available, media icons and a Join/Open action. Channel tabs and the conversations sidebar also show a compact conference glyph.
Pre-join and Devices
The antechamber lists who is already in the room, previews your camera, and lets you choose microphone, camera and speaker and decide whether to join with either enabled. There is no host and no Start: any member of the channel opens a call and anyone joins whenever they like. Permission and device failures show a Retry action, and you can still join receive-only. Layout and media defaults are remembered for your account; browser-specific device choices are remembered locally.
Layouts
Inside the conference, use the layout buttons to switch between automatic, grid, focus and speaker layouts, show or hide the participant panel, pin important participants, cycle your self-view between tile, picture-in-picture and hidden, or switch to compact mode when you want the call to take less of the page. Larger calls automatically use a denser grid while focus and speaker layouts keep a filmstrip for the remaining participants.
Keyboard
When a conference is active, use Ctrl+Shift+ArrowUp to mute or unmute your microphone, Ctrl+Shift+ArrowLeft to start or stop your camera, Ctrl+Shift+ArrowRight to cycle layouts, Ctrl+Shift+ArrowDown to focus the next participant, and Ctrl+Shift+Q to open the leave confirmation. Hold Ctrl+Shift+Z for push-to-talk while muted. Conference shortcuts do not fire from editable text fields.
Screen Sharing
Use the screen share button in the conference toolbar to publish your selected screen or window. The shared screen replaces your outgoing camera video while it is active, becomes the focused conference tile, and returns to camera when you stop sharing or the browser ends capture.
Speaker and Quality
Participant tiles and the participant panel highlight the current speaker when browser audio levels are available. Quality badges summarize recent browser connection stats such as RTT, packet loss, bitrate, frame rate and freezes for each remote participant.
Reactions
Use the reaction buttons in the conference toolbar to send a short visual reaction. Reactions are ephemeral, appear on participant tiles and rows, are not stored as chat messages, and are lightly rate limited to avoid spam.
Empty and Failure States
The conference shows explicit states while waiting for participants, joining receive-only, recovering media, or handling a failed connection. Recoverable failures keep the call open and expose Retry; leaving from a warning or error still uses the confirmation dialog so microphone, camera and SFU cleanup stay predictable.
Recovery
If the media connection is interrupted, the conference tries a short automatic recovery sequence. When automatic recovery is exhausted, use Retry to request a fresh media offer without leaving the conference.
Moderation
Channel moderators can end the conference, lock or unlock new admission, mute microphones, turn participant cameras off, stop and temporarily block screen sharing, use bulk mute/camera-off for lower-ranked participants, allow raised-hand participants to speak, and remove users from both the conference and the channel when channel policy allows it. Participants can raise a hand when they need to speak; moderators see the request queue and allowing speech unmutes the participant. A locked conference keeps users in the channel but blocks non-moderators from joining the call. Camera or screen sharing disabled by moderation is shown differently from a participant turning it off voluntarily. Destructive and bulk actions ask for confirmation first. Administrative events are recorded with the conference and relevant events appear as system messages in the channel without turning media/presence updates into chat spam.
Statistics
The conference Stats section lives inside the same call window and shows both server-side SFU state and live browser connection metrics. Use the Stats tab in the conference header to inspect diagnostics without leaving the call surface.
See also: Media Devices · Call Quality · Conversations · Conference in Its Own Tab · Sharing a Conference Link
