Let’s chat! WhatsApp rolls out voice and video group calling feature
Back in May, Facebook held its F8 developers conference where it announced new features for its Facebook family of apps. More specifically, it was at this event that WhatsApp was officially going to get group calling sometime in the future.
WhatsApp has officially announced that group calling for both voice and video is finally here.The messaging app also shares that WhatsApp users spend more than 2 billion minutes on WhatsApp calls per day, meaning the group video calls was a highly-anticipated feature.
The instant messaging service unveiled voice calling in 2014.Video calls have been supported by WhatsApp since 2016, but until now they were limited to two participants.
WhatsApp is now starting to add group video calling to its iOS and Android app and it supports up to four people at the same time.
“Group calls are always end-to-end encrypted, and we’ve designed calling to work reliably around the world in different network conditions,” WhatsApp added.
How to start WhatsApp group calls
To start a group call, start a one-on-one video or voice call with a single person. Then, you’ll see a button at the top-right corner of the screen that will let you add a participant. You can add up to three participants for a total of four people in a video or voice call.Do note that you need to download the latest version of the WhatsApp app via Google Play Store and Apple App Store.
comparison
Facebook Messenger supports group video calls of up to 50 and Skype supports 25. Meanwhile, Snapchat supports 16 participants and Apple’s FaceTime will work with up to 32 people,when iOS 12 launches later this year.
