FWIW, I usually have most of the focusmate window hidden behind my other windows (just enough visible so I can see the time left) so I rarely even notice when my co-worker moves around. I sit on a porch swing and swing while I work, so I’m sure I’d be equally annoying if anyone did have the window visible though!
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If you’re planning a dynamic session, maybe update your focusmate screen name to indicate that with some sporty emoji. I had one scheduled yesterday that I cancelled and rebooked because my initially-matched focus partner had some weird (to me) expectations listed right in their ‘name’.
It’s a bit of a faff, because you’d want to put it back to normal afterward.
Changing your name seems to be an accepted convention to indicate session context. Some people indicate their sound preferences, though I’ve only had one fully-muted session so far. In my profile name I show the languages that I’m comfortable conversing in.
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Apparently there’s a Beeminder Community group in Focusmate. Anybody got the invite link?
I’m curious what the weird expectations were!
Even though it was only yesterday, I don’t quite remember. They had a formulaic ritual that worked well for them, suggesting phrasing to be used before the session and during debrief. Nothing ridiculous, but it didn’t fit with me at that time so I noped out – not that there’s a nope button, so I cancelled and rebooked the same slot.
Edit: this might not have been in their name, but in their profile page. I try to check out who I’ll be meeting just before joining the session.
This is the BM group in Focusmate.
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I do have focusmate on my second monitor and have yet to have a session where I was distracted by the assigned partner. In fact, I do prefer sessions where the other one is full of energy. It rubs off 
Speaking of on-screen: My most disappointing FM session was someone who, after the initial hello, spent the rest of the session tidying up her daughter’s room, completely out of sight of the camera.
Thus I was left to stare at a blank wall for almost 50 minutes. Not great!
I made the best of it and also cleaned up my room in that time. That worked OK, but still I’d have preferred her to be visible on cam.
In stark contrast to this one time I co-worked with someone who moved to a different room during the session but took his laptop with him while the cam was still on. Perfect!
There was in fact one session where I would have wished my partner had stayed out of frame. He just woke up and his hair very much needed to see some soap water 
I wouldn’t want others to see me like this at work.
Then there’s always some people who apparently use focusmate on their phone or a tablet that just lays flat on some surface and give the other a perfect view of their nose holes and forehead and lots of ceiling. I also find that irritating.
But that happened only twice so far. Everyone else had a better grasp of camera placement.
I’ve had one session where someone tidied up their room on cam and that was great. Not distracting at all. It might be because you’ll appear tiny on camera when you do something away from the computer.
All in all, screen sharing is probably more distracting. That’s why I set up OBS so the other sees a smaller version of my screen together with me. It’s a nice compromise and people seem to like it.
People also seem to like my treadmill desk that I sometimes use during a session. I get asked a lot about it.
So, all in all, that was 3 sessions out of 41, i.e., 7% that were bad. All the others were alright and quite many were actually quite good with people asking questions about what I do so I can be more concrete about what I want to have achieved at the end. Also it’s fun when people send you their invite links after you co-worked with them for the first time!
Glad to help!
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Okay for my beeminder focusmate people: how annoying would it be on a scale from 1 (none) to 10 (dealbreaker) if someone lightly pixelated their camera output so their features were a little obscured but you could still see that there’s a person there and that they’re doing things?
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Maybe like a… 3, I think? Definitely nonstandard, and it would undeniably put me off a little, but I don’t think it would keep me from doing another sesh with you or anything—less “annoying” and more “distracting”, I think.
Just grow a beard, people won’t recognise you 
In all seriousness, given the choice I, personally, would rather co-work with someone who doesn’t use a pixelation filter even though I’m sure it would be a productive session regardless.
Back to the beard: if it’s algorithms you’re worried about, you can always change your hair style 
it’s not about surveillance but rather really severe body dysmorphia disorder which means that seeing myself can do very strange things to my mind, so even seeing my face in a preview window can be unpleasant
hence the abstraction
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Body dysmorphia disorder, interesting, one never stops learning. That changes things very much, indeed!
In that case I’d try something different:
I don’t know how familiar you are with Focusmate so please excuse if that’s old news to you.
If you’re the first in a meeting, Focusmate will show you your own preview in large and very prominently. This changes as soon as the other person joins.
To deal with this you could use OBS and use keyboard hotkeys to virtually disable and enable your camera (e.g. show a black screen instead of your actual camera feed).
You’d then go in with your camera showing black, then, when your partner has joined, you press your hotkey and only now your video is shown.
You’d only have to deal with the little preview window at the side to wich your feed will be relegated once your partner joins. But in, e.g., Chrome you can pop out this small video and move it somewhere else and resize it.
Move it somewhere where it doesn’t bother you.
Alternatively you might be able to use an ad blocker to block your own camera preview but still have the other person see you.
These are all just ideas, more resembling brainstorming than anything. Obviously you know best what might work for you. In any case, OBS is not hard to set up for this particular task. I use it with Focusmate, too.
I’ve had focusmate sessions where the other person was at work and so couldn’t, in their particular work environment, leave the camera on. They’d have it on for the check-ins at the beginning and then at the end, just to make chatting easier (they would go to a meeting room to do this) but, otherwise, their camera was off the whole time. It didn’t make much of a difference to me at all.
There are also people who start a session to do chores and such and let us know they’ll be off camera doing those things. Those were fine too.
In my experience, there’s a lot of room for focusmate partners to do what works for them and a lot of acceptance within the user base with respect to everyone’s needs. I wouldn’t worry about it too much as long as you’re willing to chat with the person (whether on camera or off, voice or typed chat) about what you’re each going to do, stay with it, and then chat how ot went.
You could even put some emoticons that mean “no video” in your name if you want to be upfront and let anyone who might prefer to see their FM partner pick another partner. Generally, though, this doesn’t feel like a big deal from what I’ve seen in the FM circles I’ve been running in.
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As a followup to my own questions: I’ve been using focusmate the past couple of weeks and I just bit the bullet and let it be a controlled instance of exposure therapy, which is kinda what you have to do with things that fall into the ocd family anyway.
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