WhatsApp has now officially rolled out the most awaited feature i.e. Voice and video calling on their desktop app starting this Thursday – March 4, 2021. In December last year, the instant messaging platform started rolling out these features to some selected users.
This is a big relief to countless people who are sitting in front of their computers and have to take WhatsApp calls on their phones. According to the tweet, Whatsapp announced end-to-end voice and video calls for their desktop app and they have also shared the link to download the latest version.
About The New WhatsApp Voice And Video Calling Feature on Desktop
“Sometimes you just need a little more space. Secure and reliable, end-to-end encrypted voice and video calls are now available on our desktop app.” Whatsapp tweeted.
According to WhatsApp, their new desktop calling feature is only supported on: Windows 10 64-bit version 1920 and newer macOS 10.13 and it also mentioned in the statement that all the voice and video calls on their app are end-to-end encrypted. Whether calling from a mobile device or a desktop PC, the security and privacy will remain the same.
How to video call using WhatsApp Desktop app?
- Download WhatsApp Desktop App. If you don’t have one you can download it from the official WhatsApp site.
- Launch and log into your WhatsApp for Desktop.
- Go to any of your contact’s chats.
- From the chat, you will see two options.
- The one with the phone icon is for voice calling and the other with the camera icon is for video calling.
In order to make a voice or video call on the desktop version of WhatsApp, you have to make sure that you are connected to the internet on your computer. In addition, WhatsApp also needs access to your microphone and your webcam for your voice and video calling.
WhatsApp confirmed that the video call feature will work “seamlessly” for both portrait and landscape orientation. According to the selected users, “the desktop client is set to be always on the top so you will never lose your video chats whenever you change your tab or window”
Moreover, they also confirmed that they are working on group voice as well as video calls which are going to be available in future updates.
Earlier in January, WhatsApp announced another new security feature to WhatApp web and desktop app as they are going to implement face and fingerprint unlock when linking your device. This also adds an additional layer of security when linking your device to the computer.
WhatsApp is used by over 2 billion people from all around the world and they haven’t shared how popular their voice and video calls are on the platform. However, WhatsApp confirmed that over 1.4 billion calls are done on New Year’s Eve.
The new feature of voice and video calls in their desktop app will aim to take on its rival video calling apps like Zoom, Google Meet, etc. There are some more interesting features that WhatsApp is going to introduce over this year.