Back at Facebook’s F8 developer conference in May, WhatsApp announced that it would be bringing group calling with both voice and video support later on this year. Now, WhatsApp says the feature is live for users around the globe on iOS and Android starting today. The group calling feature supports up to four people simultaneously, regardless of where those people are.
The company says it engineered the feature to work under less-than-stellar network conditions, so you can video chat a friend or family member from a far-flung locale so long as you can get yourself online. Calls are also end-to-end encrypted, like all chats on the platform.
Earlier this year, WhatsApp announced that it has 1.5 billion monthly active users, so there’s probably quite a few people who are itching to try the new group calling feature out. WhatsApp first launched video chatting in 2016 and voice calling way back in 2014, and now its users spend a total of 2 billion minutes per day talking on the phone.
WhatsApp teased that its messaging app would add a long-awaited group video callingfeature several weeks ago, and it’s finally here. Both Android and iOS users can now hold audio and video conversations with up to four people. You’ll have to start a one-on-one call before you can add the other two people, but it’s otherwise straightforward. WhatsApp reiterated that calls are “end-to-end encrypted” like its other chats, and promised that they should work in less-than-stellar network conditions.
The addition gives WhatsApp an answer to rivals that have had the option for a while, like Skype. And it’s arguably overdue. Over 1.5 billion people use WhatsApp every month, with some of them relying on it as their primary means of phone-based communication. This opens the door to group video calls for a significant chunk of that group, many of whom might have trouble convincing friends to switch apps just for the sake of a face-to-face conversation.
The benefit of using WhatsApp’s call feature is that all its calls, including group video calls, are end-to-end encrypted, just like its normal messages and calls.
This means that the chat is protected and can’t be intercepted by outside hackers.
Here’s how it works.
How to do a group video call on WhatsApp
- Make sure you have the latest iOS or Android version of WhatsApp
- Open up the app and start a one-on-one video call with a contact
- If you want to add more people in, simply click the ‘add participant’ button at the top right of your screen
- Keep adding until you hit the four people video chat limit.
Yet, it’s interesting that you can only video chat with a maximum of only four people on the platform. This is the same for Instagram, which only recently received the group call update after its parent company Facebook announced the new feature back in May. (Instagram and WhatsApp are both owned by Facebook).
But, if speaking to four people simultaneously isn’t enough for you, you can always turn to Snapchat. The app allows people to video chat with up to 16 people, as well as group calls with up to 32 people.
As well, when Apple rolls out its iOS 12 update later this year, FaceTime is going to get a major upgrade with up to 32 participants.
So if you have more than three friends who you need to speak to at any one time, there’s always another group video chat platform out there.
WhatsApp group video can audio calls can be started by starting a one-on-one voice or video call. Users can tap on the new “add participant” icon on the top right corner during a call to add more contacts to the call. Up to four participants can be added in a group voice or video call.
WhatsApp group video and audio call features are much anticipated and were previously spotted in Android beta version 2.18.189 and v2.18.192 respectively. Both audio and video group calls allow for adding a total of up to four participants. This means a user can add three contacts, and the total participants will be four, including the user.