In an attempt to curb the spread of the Coronavirus-led pandemic, office meetings have become these monotonous Zoom calls where you just sit in front of the screen – that too muted in many. So, if you are someone who is simply tired of attending those long Zoom video calls with your boss yelling at you and your colleagues through a monitor, then you will give me a thousand thanks. Here’s a nifty tool that lets you sabotage your Zoom calls to escape them smoothly, without any consequences.
Zoom Escaper
Dubbed Zoom Escaper, this ingenious web-based tool, as the name tells, helps you to escape Zoom calls by making your audio unbearable for others. It essentially lets you add annoying background noises to your Zoom calls to use them as an excuse to skip the calls. Pretty clean, ain’t it?
Developed by a tech educator named Sam Lavigne, Zoom Escaper runs inside a web browser. To use it, however, you will need to download a free audio-routing software dubbed VB-Audio and tweak a few settings on the Zoom app. It is pretty easy to set up and you can check out Lavigne’s tutorial video below if you face any issues.
How Does it Work?
Once set up, you can start a Zoom call and select your default microphone as “VB-Audio”. This way, the audio-routing tool channels the Zoom call audio through Lavigne’s Zoom Escaper website. Using the tool, you can then add various background noises to your audio calls to make them unbearable for your colleagues and boss.
The background noises range from echo effects to bad connection-noises in which the tool will break your audio to make it seem like you have a bad network. There also are noises of an upset baby, a man weeping, wind, dogs, construction, and even urination (not sure why, though!). You can even upload your own .mp3 sounds files.
So, if you feel like banging your head during your next Zoom meeting, try adding the noise of an upset baby in the background and tell your boss that your little one needs help with something. Or you can simply activate the bad connection pre-set to disconnect the call in the name of bad internet.
Now, the background noises you add to your call can be heard by every other participant of the video, except you. Moreover, you can even tweak the background noises from the Zoom Escaper page to increase or decrease some elements of the noise such as volume, feedback, delay time, and choppiness.
You can check out Zoom Escaper on its official website. And if you are planning on using it, then do install VB-Audio on your device from here. Enjoy!
