Video calls can become particularly boring when you are not the person presenting and are forced to remain in front of the webcam giving the impression of being attentive. A developer tried to solve this very problem with the help of Claude Coderealizing Veloopa free extension for Chrome that allows you to use a short looping video instead of the webcam stream.
Veloop works as a kind of pedal for the webcam video stream and can be used on several platforms, including Google Meet, Zoom Web and Microsoft Teams. The extension intercepts the getUserMedia web API, used to access the camera, and replaces the live video stream with a continuously played recording.
To create the loop it is enough hold down a hotkey while recording a short clip of yourself appearing busy or attentive. Veloop then plays the footage continuously, using a crossfade system to make the transition between the end and the beginning of the recording less noticeable and prevent the result from simply looking like a GIF.
Claude and the video calling extension: more details on development and features
One of the main aspects of the extension is that while the recorded video is shown to the platform used for the call, the connection with the physical webcam is interrupted. Reportedly, this allows for reduce energy consumption associated with the camera and also helps protect the user’s privacy when using the loop.
Claude Code was mainly used to take care of the implementation part of the project. Artificial intelligence contributed to the creation of the service Manifest V3the compositing operations via canvas and the mathematical calculations necessary for the crossfade system. He also built the IndexedDB-based clip storage system and the extension’s pop-up interface.
Veloop was developed by a Reddit user identified as “Moist_Tonight_3997” and is available for free as an extension for Chrome. In the original post there is also a short demonstration of how it works and a link to GitHub, through which you can consult the project after trying the Veloop demo.
