Using Sunflare

Voice and video

Voice channels are rooms you drop into to talk, with optional camera and screen share. This page covers joining and leaving, everything on screen during a call, the soundboard, per-person controls, and how to make your microphone sound good.

Before your first call#

• Settings
• Voice & Video

1. Choose your Microphone and Speaker. "Default" follows whatever your computer is set to.
2. Click Test Microphone and talk. If the meter doesn't move, see Nobody can hear me.
3. If you'll use a camera, pick it and click Test Video.

Joining and leaving#

Click a voice channel to join it. You're connected straight away; there's no ringing in a server. Your name appears under the channel in the sidebar, and the call view opens at the top of the chat you were reading, so you can keep typing in #general while you talk.

To leave, click the red Disconnect button in the call view, or the red button in the Voice Connected panel at the bottom of the channel list.

Calls in DMs#

In a DM or group DM, use the phone or camera button in the header to start a voice or video call. The other people get a ringing call they can Join or Decline. You can also right-click someone and choose Start a Call.

What you see in a call#

The call view#

Each person gets a tile showing their avatar, or their camera or screen when it's on. You're always first, then everyone else in the order they joined. Whoever is talking gets a green ring around their tile, and around their avatar in the sidebar too.

Under the tiles are the call controls:

Microphone

Mute or unmute yourself. Others see a muted icon on you.

Headphones (Deafen)

Stop hearing everyone, and mute your mic along with it.

Camera

Turn your camera on or off.

Screen

Share your screen or a window. See Screen share.

Arrow

Quick voice settings without leaving the call: input volume, push to talk, noise suppression, and your input and output devices.

Disconnect

Leave the call.

The Voice Connected panel#

At the bottom of the channel list, while you're in a call:

Voice Connected
gaming: 4 connected · 1:04 · connected via us-central

"Connected via"#

Sunflare picks a voice server near you automatically. The route shows where your audio actually travels:

• connected via us-central, us-east, or eu-central: through one of Sunflare's voice regions.
• eu-central → us-central: people in different regions, relayed between the two.
• direct (P2P): a one-on-one DM call going straight between the two of you.

Server voice channels with several people use Sunflare's voice servers. One-on-one DM calls try to connect directly first.

Camera#

Click the camera button. With Always Preview Video on (Settings → Voice & Video), you see yourself first and confirm before anyone else does, which is handy when you've just woken up.

Screen share#

Click the screen button and choose what to share.

• In the desktop app, Sunflare's own picker shows your screens and windows, with resolution, frame rate, and audio options.
• In a browser, the browser's picker appears. Whether you can share sound depends on the browser and what you pick (a browser tab can usually share its audio).
• The Android app can't share its screen, so the button isn't shown there.

Screen share quality by plan#

Set Resolution and Frame Rate separately under Settings → Voice & Video → Screen Share. Options your plan doesn't include are greyed out and name the plan that unlocks them, and the frame rates on offer depend on the resolution you pick. In the desktop app, the screen picker starts from these each time and lets you change them for that one share. Higher settings need more upload bandwidth; if your share stutters for others, step one down. If your plan changes, Sunflare falls back to the closest setting you're still allowed.

Your camera isn't tied to a plan: it sends up to 1080p, as smooth as the camera allows, on every plan.

Controlling what you hear from each person#

Right-click anyone in the call (their tile, or their name under the voice channel):

User Volume

Make one person louder or quieter, just for you. Fixes the friend whose mic is always too loud.

Mute

Stop hearing that person, just for you. They aren't told.

Disable Video

Stop receiving their camera, just for you. Saves bandwidth on a slow connection.

Moderators get more options on the same menu (Move To, Server Mute, Server Deafen, Disconnect). Those affect the person for everyone; see Voice moderation.

The soundboard#

Click the soundboard button in the Voice Connected panel to play short sounds into the call. Everyone in the call hears them.

• The board shows sounds you've uploaded yourself. Use the upload tile to add one; see Custom sounds.
• Each sound plays from everyone's own device rather than through your microphone, so it sounds clean no matter how your mic is set up. People who are deafened don't hear it.

Making your microphone sound good#

• Settings
• Voice & Video

Voice Processing#

Pick one of three options at the top of the Voice Processing card:

Balanced (recommended)

Noise suppression, echo cancellation, and automatic gain all on. Right for headsets, laptop mics, and most USB mics.

Raw

All processing off. For audio interfaces and mixers that already clean up the sound. Using Raw with a plain laptop mic usually means echo and background noise.

Custom

Set the three options below yourself.

Noise Suppression

AI noise removal (RNNoise) that runs on your own device. Removes keyboards, fans, and street noise. Sunflare doesn't use your browser's built-in noise suppression. Turning this on or off works mid-call.

Echo Cancellation

Stops others hearing themselves through your speakers. Keep it on unless you always wear headphones.

Auto Gain Control

Evens out your volume when you move closer to or further from the mic.

Input Mode: voice activity or push to talk#

By default your mic sends whenever you're talking loudly enough (voice activity).

• Automatically Adjust Input Sensitivity calibrates that threshold to your room. Turn it off to set Input Sensitivity by hand: raise it if background noise keeps triggering your mic, lower it if your first words get cut off.
• Push to Talk sends only while you hold a key. Set the key in Keybinds.

Other voice options#

Microphone and Speaker volume

The Volume slider on the Microphone card is your outgoing mic level; the one on the Speaker card is the overall level of everything you hear. Test Microphone lights the meter beside it as you talk.

No Audio Detected Warning

Tells you if Sunflare hears nothing from your mic during a call, usually meaning the wrong device is picked.

Switch Voice Channel Warning

Asks before moving you when you click a different voice channel mid-call.

Sound Effects

The clicks for connecting, disconnecting, muting, and call ringing. Use Classic Sound Effects brings back the sounds from before version 0.3.

Voice limits worth knowing#

• A channel's audio quality (bitrate) and user limit are set by moderators; see Bitrate and User Limit.
• If you're timed out in a server, you can't join its voice channels until it ends.
• Joining voice needs the Connect permission, which everyone has by default.