Virtual travel through views from other people’s windows, somewhere in the world

Window Swap, is one way to get the feel of being in a new place while staying safe during the pandemic. Anyone can access Window Swap, no app downloads or subscriptions needed, and find a video of a new window to gaze through, which is refreshed randomly whenever you click a button at the bottom of the screen. Videos of windows can be submitted by anyone who wants to give people a new perspective in the world. These videos must be a 10-minute, static, horizontal shot of your window in order to submit.

Getting a little sick of the same old view from your window as the coronavirus outbreak continues to limit travel? The website Window-Swap.com lets you gaze at someone else's view for a change. You might find yourself staring at an office building in Germany, a street of shops in London, a sunset in France, or a mountain in Italy.

Husband and wife Vaishnav Balasubramaniam and Sonali Ranjit, created the site to give visitors a chance to see something different without leaving their homes.

These subtle details, they explain, seem to calm people. Some leave WindowSwap running all day, imagining they are working somewhere else; some take ten minutes out to stare while their thoughts wander. They have received messages from patients in hospices, saying the windows have carried them away from their beds. “A lot of these windows, though they are beautiful, after a while your mind wanders and instead you get lost in your thoughts – that's a kind of centring experience for a lot of people, I guess.”