[flyx86]

> Has anyone had success running video calls over Matrix without Element?

fwiw if you use the Jitsi widget, you can share the URL to your Jitsi room with anyone and they do not need Element or Matrix to join.

The whole voice/video thing is a design problem as protocols like Matrix or XMPP are designed for non-realtime communication, while voice/video is very much realtime. You cannot possibly federate a video stream, so Matrix or XMPP can, by design, only supply the routing (i.e. connecting the people who want to participate in a realtime chat) and the participants then need to agree on some server/software combo that provides the actual video conferencing.

[motiejus]

The Matrix clients I have tried have "call via audio" and "call with video" buttons available in convenient places.

> fwiw if you use the Jitsi widget, you can share the URL to your Jitsi room with anyone and they do not need Element or Matrix to join.

I would like my grandma to click a green "phone" button and answer my call. I would like my grandma to be able to issue a call for me.

> and the participants then need to agree on some server/software combo that provides the actual video conferencing.

Since the button is in a very convenient place, I would expect the integration to be a bit deeper than "hope the client understands the invite"; it's tricky to make the clients without a spec.

It would have been nicer if this were documented better/more obviously, so we know what to expect if we want video calls to work across different UIs.