One of the most used features of WhatsApp, especially as of 2020, is video conferencing.. Until the end of the last decade, this communication system did not end up penetrating among ordinary private users, it was more related to voice communication (either within calls or through voice notes) and text communication. Whether due to lack of habit, privacy, modesty, or any other reason, even though they were within reach, the number of users who used them were frankly in the minority.

However, due to the restrictions we were forced into during the pandemic, video conferencing has become very popular, because they offered us a more complete contact with our loved ones (family, friends, etc.) than the means I mentioned above. Services such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet and the like, which until then were exclusively associated with a professional environment, became part of the daily life of many people. People who, in many cases, also discovered that other services they regularly used also had this feature. Of course, to reduce the formality, the concept of video conferencing has evolved into video calling, which is essentially the same thing, but sounds a little less professional.

Of course, these services like WhatsApp were somewhat limited in terms of the maximum number of participants per video call, although thankfully its managers began to converge in this regard precisely during this periodwhere we started to see evidence (and then actual deployment) of a big increase in the maximum number of participants who could join a video conference… sorry, group video call.

It happens with WhatsApp, yes, it does its Windows app is usually well behind what its Android and iOS counterparts offer. I confess I never understood the reason for this. Maybe it’s because its usage fee is significantly lower? That’s likely, but of course it makes sense that it’s because he’s the furthest in the family, among other things. So the classic situation of a whale nibbling its tail.

Eventually, however, many features and enhancements will expand its reach. So as we can read in WABetaInfo, Meta is already testing video calls of up to 32 people on WhatsApp for Windows. Currently available in beta version 2.2324.1.0, its test deployment is, yes, limited, so only some users can start enjoying this increase in maximum participant capacity. However, it is expected that more users will be able to access it in the future through the same beta version (and of course later ones). There are no signs, yes, when the final version will start reaching users.