Google Meet, formerly known as Hangouts Meet is now free for both G Suite and non-G Suite customers. The Google video premium conferencing app used to be available for only G Suite users, but now Google feels its time to roll it out for free to people to keep in touch during the coronavirus pandemic.
"Today, we're making Google Meet, our premium video conferencing product, free for everyone, with availability rolling out over the coming weeks," Google announced in a blog post.
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The Internet Search giant says the service will be made available to anyone that has a Gmail account. Once it has been made available to everyone, you will be able to create and host meetings up to 100 participants by going to Meet's website or via the Android or iOS app.
"Starting in early May, anyone with an email address can sign up for Meet and enjoy many of the same features available to out business and education users, such as simple scheduling and screen sharing, real-time captions, and layouts that adapts to your preference, including an expanded tiled view," Google said.
Free accounts meetings will be limited to 60 minutes per session, though Google won't enforce that in place until September 30th. The premium service is available for free for G Suite users until September 30th. Unlike the free users, G Suite customers can have up to 250 participants in a call, and can as well live stream for up to 100,00 viewers, record and as well save calls.
Competing products such as Zoom has grown popular as people around the world seek for a platform that will accommodate large number of people during video conferencing. Social messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger which are all free, have all increased the number of participants in a video call.
Availability will be rolled out to more users over the coming weeks. To get a notification when Meet will be available, click here to sign up.