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Joining a circle

You join a circle from a link your host sends you. It looks like:

https://app.circles.care/<room-name>?key=<key>

The key is what grants you entry. A link without it, or with the wrong one, shows an error instead of letting you in — so paste the whole thing, and treat it as private: anyone holding it can join that circle.

Hosts and admins who are signed in can open /<room-name> with no key at all.

Circles is a cameras-on space

Everyone in a circle is visible to everyone else. That is the point of it, and it is enforced rather than encouraged: you cannot enter without a working camera, and if your camera goes away while you are in a circle, you are taken back out to the entry screen.

If the entry screen tells you it can't find a camera, the usual cause is not missing hardware — it is another app holding it. Quit Zoom, Meet, Teams or Photo Booth, then reload the page. If you genuinely have no camera attached, connect one and allow this page to use it.

Phones are not supported.

The entry screen

Before you go in, you get a screen with your room's name, a welcome message if your host set one, and two dropdowns:

  • Camera — every camera the browser can see
  • Microphone — every microphone the browser can see

Pick the ones you want and press Enter. Your choices are remembered for next time.

Your browser will ask for permission to use the camera and microphone the first time. You have to allow it; denying leaves you on the entry screen.

What happens when you enter

You connect to the circle and land in whichever state it is already in — if a round is running, you arrive into the round rather than into normal conversation.

You join muted. See Sound and camera.

If the circle is already open in another tab

Joining is blocked if the same browser already has that circle open. Close the other tab and try again — this stops you appearing twice to everyone else.

Getting back to this screen

The Settings item in the room menu returns you here, so you can change camera or microphone. It reloads the page, so you leave and rejoin the circle.