WhatsApp update could add huge video calls through Facebook Messenger tie-in

Feature will send people to newly introduced 'Messenger Rooms'

(AFP/Getty)

WhatsApp groups could soon participate in huge group video chats with up to 50 people thanks to a Facebook Messenger tie-in.

The new update, revealed by popular WhatsApp news account WABetaInfo, shows that the company is planning to make it easier to send everyone in a chat to speak in the newly release Messenger Rooms.

Those rooms – which are large video chats along the lines of a Zoom call, and do not require users to be logged in to a Facebook account – allow up to 50 people to talk at once. Currently, WhatsApp only allows eight people, after that maximum was doubled in recent weeks.

If users are transferred to a Messenger chat, they will lose access to the security of the end-to-end encryption that WhatsApp offers on both messages and calls, but will be able to speak to far more people at once.

The feature works by adding a button during group calls that a user can press and then be taken into a larger room on Messenger. If the user chooses to continue, they will then be able to send the Messenger Room link back to the WhatsApp chat, which will allow everyone inside of it to join.

They will be warned that they are leaving WhatsApp and will thus no longer be using its encrypted chats.

Both Messenger Rooms and the increased size of WhatsApp group chats were responses to lockdowns and an attempt to make it easier to stay in touch, and so the changes to WhatsApp are probably being made with the same intention.

The change was found in early versions of both the WhatsApp Web client and the Android version of the app, suggesting that it will probably make it into the full release and could arrive soon.