Beyond the Obvious Stack
Most remote workers have settled into a standard toolkit: Zoom or Teams for calls, Slack or Teams for messaging, Google Drive or OneDrive for files, and whatever project management tool the organisation chose. This standard stack works and nobody argues against it. What it misses are the specific friction points that remote work creates that office work didn’t — and the apps that address those specific friction points without adding bloat to an already-dense toolkit.
The apps in this article aren’t meant to replace the standard remote work stack; they’re meant to address the gaps that the standard stack doesn’t cover. Some are free, some have modest subscription costs, and all address a specific remote work problem that enough people face to justify knowing about them.
Krisp: Noise Cancellation That Actually Works
Krisp uses AI to remove background noise from microphone input in real time — not just reducing it, but genuinely removing it. The dog barking, the construction outside, the family member in the next room, the keyboard typing during a call — Krisp’s noise suppression handles all of these before the audio reaches the conferencing software. Unlike the noise suppression built into video calling apps, Krisp works at the system level and applies to any app, including recording software.
The free tier (60 minutes of noise cancellation per week) is useful for occasional calls; the Pro plan ($8/month) provides unlimited use for daily call-heavy remote work. For remote workers in environments with consistent background noise — shared spaces, homes with children or pets, urban apartments with street noise — the quality difference between calls with and without Krisp is audible to the other participants. It’s one of the few apps where the before/after difference is immediately obvious to people who aren’t you.
Loom: Async Video That Replaces Meetings
Loom records screen and camera video simultaneously and generates a shareable link immediately after recording — no upload wait, no file transfer. The format is the async meeting replacement that remote work needs: instead of scheduling a 30-minute call to walk someone through something visual, record a 5-minute Loom that they can watch when convenient, rewind if needed, and respond to with their own Loom or a comment.
The Loom use cases that consistently save the most time: replacing the ‘can you jump on a quick call’ request for something that doesn’t actually require synchronous discussion, providing visual context for bug reports or design feedback that screenshots alone don’t capture, and onboarding documentation that shows rather than describes processes. The free tier (25 videos with 5-minute cap) is useful for occasional use; the Business plan ($15/user/month) removes caps for heavy async-video users.
Otter.ai: Meeting Transcription That’s Actually Useful
Otter.ai transcribes meetings in real time and produces a searchable transcript with speaker identification, action item extraction, and summary generation. For remote workers who attend many meetings, the searchable transcript eliminates the ‘what did we decide about X’ problem — the decision is in the transcript and searchable. The summary and action item extraction reduce the post-meeting administrative work of capturing and distributing decisions.
The integration with Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet means the Otter bot joins meetings automatically and produces transcripts without manual recording initiation. The free tier (300 monthly transcription minutes) covers light use; the Pro plan ($16.99/month) is appropriate for heavy meeting schedules. The limitation worth knowing: speaker identification accuracy depends on the audio quality and the number of participants; with many speakers in noisy conditions, accuracy degrades.
Focusmate: Accountability Without the Office
Focusmate is the remote work app with the most unusual premise: you book 25- or 50-minute co-working sessions with a stranger on the internet. When the session starts, both participants briefly share what they’re working on, then work silently on camera together. At the end, they briefly share what they accomplished. That’s the whole product.
Why this works: the social presence of another person working creates the accountability dynamic of the office without the conversation and interruption of the office. The commitment of having booked a specific time with a specific person reduces the starting resistance that makes solo deep work harder than in-person work for many remote workers. Focusmate’s research and user reports consistently show higher session completion rates and productivity during booked sessions than equivalent solo work blocks. The free tier (3 sessions/week) is sufficient for most users; the Plus plan ($6.99/month) provides unlimited sessions.
