WhatsApp video calls get 32 participants, screen sharing, speaker spotlight

Today WhatsApp has announced a bunch of enhancements for video calls. First off, you can now have up to 32 people on a video call across all of your devices.

Next, WhatsApp video calls now support screen sharing with audio. Finally, with speaker spotlight, the person who's speaking is automatically highlighted and appears first on screen.

All of these features are promised to roll out "over the next few weeks" to all WhatsApp users. Additionally, the service says it remains "relentlessly focused on audio and video quality, for clearer calls no matter where you are".

To that end, it launched a new codec recently that improves call reliability. This makes calls on mobile devices benefit from better noise and echo cancellation, while it also gives video calls higher resolution for those on fast connections. Audio should be crisper overall too, even if you have poor network connectivity or are using an older device.

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