You can have that remotely. In my team we (8 people) spend our whole day on a visio conference room. We’re mainly idle but we use it to ask for help, discuss decisions informally, vent, talk about whatever(games, movies, etc.), all of that exactly the same as in the open space, but better because we can still disconnect if we need to focus.
If we need a real meeting or need to talk with a specific subject, we just go to another conference room, in the same way we’d use a meeting room in the office.
The thing though is that we have a dedicated device for the visio. For now it’s a Cisco DX but it could work with an iPad for example.
The massive difference between what you describe and sitting in person is body noise. A cough in an office is normal while a cough in a video chat gets everyone’s attention.
I feel like it would be very draining but it sounds like you’re enjoying it?
We just mute ourselves when we’re not talking an close the camera lid if we’re not comfortable with it.
I used to be self conscious about it, but I think the company culture plays a role. We had these devices and this behavior way before COVID because our teams were already remote (5 people in a city in France, 2 in another, 2 in Tunisia…), this is the company way of keeping remote people close to one another. The whole company works like this because all the teas are distributed. I went from not caring about it to loving it, and if I switched company I would do my best to advocate for such a system.
I usually use Push-To-Talk mode on most video calls when I can. I'm not perfect about it, but I do manage to mute probably 90% of throat-clearing noises or 75% of my typing.
If we need a real meeting or need to talk with a specific subject, we just go to another conference room, in the same way we’d use a meeting room in the office.
The thing though is that we have a dedicated device for the visio. For now it’s a Cisco DX but it could work with an iPad for example.