A slew of new features and improvements are coming to the Hand Raise feature in Google Meet. The changes make the feature more prominent so it’s easier to “notice and address raised hands,” for both the host and end-users.
To begin with, Google has updated and improved the visual icon and animation that appears on the video tile when someone raises their hand. A tiny dot in the bottom-left corner of the screen now shows an animated waving hand. The dot then expands to a pill and shows the person’s full name.
When the first raised hand is raised, Meet will notify all participants in the meeting with audio notification. Google Meet will also let users move the tiles of people with raised hands to a more visible location in the video grid.
Another notification will show the number of hands currently raised in a meeting. And if there are multiple hands raised, users can click on this notification to see an ordered queue of all the raised hands, with the respective participant’s name. Lastly, Google Meet is picking up a new feature that will automatically lower a participant’s raised hand after they speak.
Google Meet improves its Hand Raise feature
Google has already started rolling out the newly announced Google Meet features to end-users. As usual, users on Rapid Release domains will be getting them first, starting on June 16th. Google says it could take more than 15 days for the features to reach all users on Rapid Release domains.
Users on Scheduled Release domains, meanwhile, will start getting the new features on June 30th. The gradual rollout could take longer than 15 days for completion though.
According to Google, these improvements to the Hand Raise feature in Meet will be available for all users with Workspace Essentials, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, or Nonprofits plans. G Suite Business customers will also get the new features.
Unfortunately, users with Google Workspace Business Starter or G Suite Basic plans will not be able to benefit from the new changes. As you might expect, users with personal Google Accounts aren’t getting these improvements either.
Note that there is no admin control or end-user setting for any of the newly announced Google Meet features. These features will be enabled by default for all eligible Meet users once they roll out to their accounts. If you want to know more about how to raise your hand in Meet, check out this official support page.