During the pandemic of COVID – 19 and to a greater extent during the lockdown periods calls and video calls online have become increasingly common, both for private users and for companies that have had to find an alternative to face-to-face meetings. Facebook and Zoom took advantage of the moment by proposing their own technologies, and WhatsApp was also updated by increasing the limit of group calls to 8 people. But there are other news in sight.

Calls and video calls via WhatsApp Web and via desktop client

According to what was declared by the prolific WABetaInfo, in fact, the WhatsApp team is working on the implementation of the functionality also on the client for desktop systems, so within the WhatsApp Web platform accessible via browser. The feature was implemented in the first test builds these days, but it is not yet accessible to the public and provides support for both calls and video calls with WhatsApp even on desktop .

The feature is also provided not only for one-to-one calls, but also for groups, so there will be the possibility to make group calls and video calls with WhatsApp Web . The source has also published screenshots showing the new feature in operation: upon receiving a call or video call, a small dedicated window will be launched with the caller’s name, profile photo and three keys to accept, reject or ignore the incoming call.

Similarly, a dedicated window will also be launched when a call is forwarded to a contact, and will be used to manage the various options typical of the conversation. It should be noted that already today it is possible to make video calls via the WhatsApp desktop client, however the current function creates a room on Facebook Messenger and does not use WhatsApp natively. The new feature, on the other hand, will adopt the WhatsApp infrastructure for calls and video calls.

When the calls and video calls arrive on the WhatsApp desktop client and on WhatsApp Web ? As usual it is impossible to make predictions. The feature is under development and has not yet been officially confirmed, so everything will depend on how the work proceeds in the near future.