This business PTT application (that just came out o beta) allows the admin to see their user's location, create a team, and establish geofences. The application is available on IOS and Android. The team behind the app says your account is tied to your device's IMEI address which you will see can pose problems in the application later down the line.
Push to talk means that you can press a button to send voice transmission. This is basically a walkie-talkie application for mobile devices
One Sentence Summary: Nuovo Team is a good application, but it lacks the polish it needs to make it great.
The Good:
The application's sound quality is excellent, and there is only a tiny one-second delay between push to talk. Nuovo team also has the option to do chats, voice, or video calls. The video call quality is okay and slightly grainy, but it is near-instantaneous, and it does its job. The application is simple and has limited settings you can change. The admin web app allows users to chat with a specific person or team, see their location, and remotely disable a user's PTT capabilities. This application also works over WiFi or data, so this could theoretically work on tablets, iPods, or other WiFi-only devices. This could be useful for a team in a store or other retailers that already have WiFi networks. The walkie-talkie button in the application can either force you to select a channel the press it, or stay in that channel that previously contacted you. The application supports devices with a dedicated PTT key. (It did not work on the Google Assistant key on my test LG V40 donated to TheTechBoy.)
GPS accuracy is pretty accurate, and if a team is created (by the admin) then geofencing, and clocking in and out can be enabled. A team allows groups of people to talk to each other, instead of having a one-on-one PTT conversation. You can force users to take a picture when they clock in and out and you can force them to include their location. Broadcasting also allows the admin to add users to the Broadcast channel and send PTT, or chats to specific users. You can allow users in a broadcast channel to respond or make it a one-way conversation. You can also schedule send messages on the channel. You can chat to users one on one or to your team. The option to edit chats can be disabled.  |
| NuovoTeam |
Struggles:
However, as good as this application sounds there were some initial struggles. If you sign out of an account and try to re-sign in it may not work. We could not get it to work on Maestro Mo's Pixel 4 ever (may be IMEI issues), and when I tried to sign in after moving out of Secure Folder, it would not load and it would throw up an "check with your admin" error. On the off time that it signed in, I would get a blank screen, but I could talk to that person from the admin interface. (I probably should have waited longer) Because of these issues, I was ready to give this a 1-star review.
The team informed me that the device is only linked to one account by IMEI address. I later figured out that the admin had to disable the account, then allow the user to re-sign in. An improvement, I would make is to have more clear error messages which would have remedied the situation. This is a recurring theme throughout the application, as when I created a broadcast channel, PTT was blocked, The error message incorrectly told me that I needed to go to PTT settings, not the Broadcast channel settings.
Also on my A71 5G, it would not open my maps application to see the location of a test SOS message. Also, the application does not play nice with Samsung Pass autofill and sometimes takes you to a web browser to sign in. Also, some channels are slow to load on mobile, and one time it lagged on mobile.
Security:
Other pain points of this application include the security ramifications of this application. The application allows the super admin to set a password for the user, or it emails a password in cleartext. These are not good security practices. Thankfully the user can get an One Time Password (OTP) sent to their phone number if he or she uses a phone to sign in that way. Nuovo allows the super admin to create an @nuvo.app username for the users, and select a password for that user. This also come with the compromise of allowing the super admin to select your password and then having to tell you. In a large corporation, the process of setting up an account, and giving users passwords could take hours or days. This could drive some super admins to set easy passwords for their users. However, since a user can only be signed in on one device at a time, it would only be effective to attempt to take over the super admin's account. Yet, Nuovo does not offer 2FA on the super admin account, or any password requirements (other than 8 digits so asdfghjkl is perfectly fine) making it less secure than some may like it.
Conclusion:
This application, after clearing up the initial confusion, does its job well. The PTT call quality is good and the location accuracy is accurate. However, a few snags, stand in the way of it truly being great. There is no floating PTT icon when you exit the application, meaning I have to go back to Nuovi to click Push-to-Talk. However, this is easily remedied by putting the application in pop-up or split-screen view. The application's error message sometimes leaves the user feeling bewildered and confused, and the security options are not as good as they should be. Sometimes the user's voice can be garbled if he releases the PTT button too fast. It appears a user can only be in one team at a time, which is insane. You can also upload users from a CSV file, although its own test CSV has a couple of errors. In all this application is okay, but needs a little more polish to become truly great. This application gets 3.5 stars. ⭐⭐⭐
Tech Talk To You Later!!
Pricing: 5 dollars a month per user.
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