VooV: The Best Zoom Alternative for Mainland China
Zoom, the most popular video conferencing tool is inaccessible in Mainland China. Even with a VPN, it’s not guaranteed that the connection will be stable for quality audio or video calls. This has created issues for businesses, and educational institutions among others in and outside of China. For example, you can’t easily schedule a Zoom call with potential buyers or team members in Mainland China if you are overseas and vice versa.
The good news is that you can use VooV, possibly the best Zoom alternative for China, free of charge with unlimited time and up to 300 attendees.
What is VooV
VooV (known as Tencent Meeting in China) is essentially what people use for personal and business video conferencing in China. VooV has very similar features compared to Zoom, which makes the transition quite easy for most users.
VooV is also free to sign up without meeting duration restrictions on the free account.
How to sign up for Voov
Please note: you do not need to register for a VooV account if you aren’t hosting VooV meetings but only joining only as an attendee.
If you are joining VooV as a host, or need to schedule future meetings, you will need a VooV account.
You can sign up for VooV as a mobile app or via a browser. We noticed the mobile app experience is better than the browser experience. So don’t give up if one of them doesn’t work out for you. VooV can be a little wonky for users outside of China.
You can sign up for VooV using any of the following methods:
- Google account
- Apple account
- Mobile phone
Sign up for VooV using a browser
Sign up for VooV via the mobile app
How to schedule a call with VooV
The good news is that VooV is very similar to Zoom Meeting. If you are familiar with Zoom, you should have no issues scheduling new meetings.
Start a meeting
You can start a meeting ad-hoc by using the “Start” feature. You have the option to use PMI (Personal Meeting ID), or a randomly generated meeting ID. Unlimited meeting duration has a maximum of 300 attendees, which is more generous than Zoom’s free account (with only a 45-min meeting limit) for sure.
Schedule a meeting
You can also schedule a meeting in advance using the “Schedule” feature. Also known as “Host a Meeting | Schedule” inside the browser experience.
The meeting details are similar to Zoom with only required fields for Meeting Topic, Time, and Timezone. Scheduling a meeting inside VooV should take just a couple of minutes.
How to share a meeting & invite other meeting attendees to VooV
Sharing meeting invites with attendees is easy. Although VooV doesn’t have a direct way to send an email to attendees, you can choose “Invite” and then copy the meeting details to share with them.
How to join a VooV meeting (from the mobile app or a browser)
Join VooV meetings using the mobile app
We prefer the mobile app experience. Simply open the app, choose “Join” and then enter the meeting ID. That’s it!
Join VooV meeting using a browser such as Chrome
There are many more steps to join a VooV meeting from a browser. Some steps may be intricate and even repetitive. Once you’ve gone through the process, it’ll get much easier in the future.
- Visit https://voovmeeting.com/
- Click on Join Now
- Enter the meeting ID and then hit “Join“
- (Very important) – Choose “Join from Browser” – the second button in gray
5. After that, you are presented with 3 additional prompts – age verification (remember the first field is YEAR, not month, for those of you who are from outside of China), verify meeting ID one more time with the option to turn on Mic and Video, and finally confirm you’ve read the agreement before continuing to “Next”.
6. You have to confirm camera and microphone access for your browser.
Choose the radio button “Continue allowing https://voovmeeting.com” to access your camera and microphone. You have the opportunity to confirm the right devices, and click “Done”.
7. You are in! You will be able to see other participants and they will be able to see you!
The weird part is that your little thumbnail doesn’t always show your video. Instead, it shows your initial, see “F” in my sidebar below. If you aren’t sure that others are seeing your video, you can always ask to double-check.
Be sure to place your camera in such a way that people can see you, the same way you’d attend a Zoom meeting. Because there’s no video feedback with your thumbnail turned off, it’s hard sometimes to judge how you look. Again, this is the case with VooV’s browser experience which is a bit wonky.
Conclusion: Is VooV a good alternative for Zoom in Mainland China?
Is VooV a good alternative for Zoom to communicate with colleagues, students, and friends in mainland China? Yes, absolutely.
VooV is free with no time limit for up to 300 attendees, you can’t beat it.
User experience-wise, VooV is very similar to Zoom. We prefer the mobile app as it’s often more predictable compared to the browser experience, where errors may occur and having to repeat steps such as enabling the camera and microphone or saying yes to the agreement more than once.
With VooV, you no longer need your attendees in China to have to download a VPN, which can be unreliable. However, if you must use Zoom, we recommend testing out at least a few VPNs and practicing running your Zoom meeting prior to the live session. Better yet, set up VooV as a backup in case Zoom doesn’t work out for those important meetings with Chinese attendees.
Good luck! If you have used other VooV alternatives and liked them, be sure to share with us in the comments below.