Engineering
Live updates now run on our own engine
Questions, votes, polls and the projector now run on Flying Fish, our own realtime engine, instead of PartyKit, and a crash can no longer lose a vote.
What shipped
- We moved off PartyKit. Every live update (new questions, votes, polls, the timer, the projector, the host's laser pointer and drawing) now travels over Flying Fish, a realtime engine we built and run ourselves. PartyKit is no longer needed.
- Built for big rooms. In our tests Flying Fish held about 8,000 phones at once on a single small machine, and every phone kept receiving updates. Votes are counted by Kite, our own vote counter, which kept every vote it had acknowledged through repeated hard crashes.
- Host screens are protected. The moderator, presenter and panelist screens connect with a signed pass. The projector only listens, so it opens from a plain link with no sign-in.
- One attendee count everywhere. The room page, the public event page and the projector now show the same number of people in the room. Before, a late arrival could be counted twice.
- Approved questions appear straight away. A question held for review now shows on every phone the moment a moderator approves it, with no reload.
Why it matters
Faster, steadier live screens for large audiences, and one less outside service between your event and your attendees.