Facebook Home is now available in the Play Store to select Android devices. No, unfortunately, I cannot give you the link because I don’t have it. Check out the list of supported devices below to see if yours qualifies:
Facebook Home supported devices
- HTC One X
- HTC One X+
- HTC One
- Samsung Galaxy SIII
- Samsung Galaxy Note II
- Samsung Galaxy S4
Regardless, it looks like everyone can get a taste of those famous Chat Heads- you know the ones. The Facebook and Facebook Messenger apps have been updated to work with the unique Chat Heads feature. The new feature is being added as an extension to Facebook Messenger. This lovely little update appeared in the “What’s New” section for the Facebook Messenger app:
Keep chatting even when you’re using other apps. Just tap the chat head to reply, drag down to close.
Since Chat Heads is probably the coolest feature of the new Facebook Home launcher, I’m not going to complain that you can use it separately- hell, I don’t think many folks will. The Chat Heads function shows the avatar of whoever you’re talking to as an adjustable bubble on the home screen.
The feature is convenient, especially if you use Facebook Messenger to chat with a lot of friends and family. The heads will pop up when you get a new message, and you can tap on the notification to jump right into the appropriate Facebook conversation.
To dismiss a Chat Head all you have to do is flick the bubble down toward the bottom of the screen. The Facebook chat window will open on top of any other screens or applications that are open, so you don’t even have to stop what you’re doing to respond. Ah, such is the beauty of multi-tasking thanks to Android. It works extremely well too, with remarkably responsive reaction times.
It doesn’t look like there are any specific device requirements, but the support is probably being enabled server side so you might not be able to use it until a little later. If you want to try out the new Chat Heads feature, all you have to do is go update the Facebook and Facebook Messenger applications, or download them if you don’t already have them installed on your device. Please be sure to let everyone know what you think of the feature in the comments below.