WhatsApp is adding new features to phone calls, including support for video calls with 32 people

WhatsApp on Thursday updated its video calling feature across devices, introducing audio-enabled screen sharing and a new speaker highlighting feature. It also increases the participant limit for video calls to 32 people.

Last August, WhatsApp introduced support for screen sharing in video calls. The instant messaging app has now improved this experience by enabling support for on-screen audio sharing. This will allow you to watch videos with your contacts while on a WhatsApp call.

Another significant change that WhatsApp has introduced to its video calls is the expanded limit that allows users to have a single video call on different devices with a maximum of 32 people. Before this update, WhatsApp had a limit of 32 participants on mobile devices, while Windows and macOS users could add up to 16 and 8 participants respectively.

WhatsApp’s expanded cross-device video calling support is compatible with Apple’s FaceTime feature, which also allows iPhone and iPad users to video call with up to 32 participants. However, Google Meet and Zoom allow users to have up to 100 people even if they are at the entry level.

The latest WhatsApp updates also introduced a speaker light feature that automatically highlights a participant in a video call and makes them appear first on the screen.

Additionally, Meta, the parent of WhatsApp, has introduced the Meta Low Bitrate (MLow) codec on WhatsApp to improve call reliability even if the user has poor network connectivity or is using an older device. It is a significant update to the Open Source Opus codec that Meta previously implemented in its real-time communications products. The patented codec provides twice the audio quality of Opus while maintaining 10% lower computational complexity compared to the open source codec.

Mlow is already available in conversations on Instagram and Messenger, and is now rolling out to WhatsApp to improve the quality of conversations on Meta platforms.

In addition to Mlow, WhatsApp said in a blog post that it will be rolling out all the latest calling-related updates to all eligible users over the next few weeks.