Over the years, if WhatsApp users have asked for anything from those responsible for the service, this is undoubtedly it expanding account access options. Recall that under this type of service (not all of them, some of them debuted as much more generous in this sense), the user account was uniquely and exclusively linked to the smartphone (and its corresponding phone number, of course).. Difficult at the time, but understandable limitations. And we have to remember that the service debuted in 2009, when the smartphone ecosystem was still an emerging trend.

Over time (six years later, in 2015 to be exact), a year after the original company was already bought by Facebook (now Meta), we lived the first major expansion in this regard with the launch of WhatsApp Web, the in-browser version of the service that finally gave us access from other devices. I even remember that at that time some iPad applications became popular, which were nothing more than a “tweaked” browser to access the service from an Apple tablet.

It wasn’t really an innovation. other instant messaging services already provided a similar feature years ago. For example, I remember LINE, which already in 2012 offered many features that we see coming to other services today. It ultimately failed in the West, but is still one of the most widely used instant messaging services in Asia. But hey, at least it was progress.

However, a big leap in this regard occurred last yearand it is that until then all connections depended on the smartphone, that is, if the phone was turned off, you could not access your account from the WhatsApp website or from applications on other devices. That started to change in the middle of last year with the launch of a beta version of multi-device support without the need to connect a smartphone. And in November last year, the feature started rolling out to all WhatsApp users. There were initial problems, but today it works without incident.

However, WhatsApp still retained one major limitation. Thanks to last year’s change, we can have an account open on up to four devices at the same time, but only one of them can be a smartphone. Why? I understand it’s because of your policy of linking an account to a phone number, but it still doesn’t seem like an insurmountable hurdle. But hey, we’ve known for a few months that the company’s engineers have already been working on it.

In this case, it seems the wait has finally paid off. And that’s how WABinfo proceeds, WhatsApp has already started testing the Companion mode in its beta version for Android, for using the same account on two smartphones. The companion mode, or companion, is only active for certain testers of said version, not all, which makes us think that Meta wants to go one step at a time with its tests and subsequent deployments.

So, some WhatsApp beta users who install it on their Android smartphone will see in the configuration section when they first open it, the possibility to connect this “new” terminal with another device, that is, with another smartphone, and once this operation is completed, the conversation history will be synchronized and they will be able to access their account normally and simultaneously from both terminals. Of course, according to this media, and since this is a beta version, it is possible that some features of the service are not available in it.