Facebook Messenger Rooms integration for WhatsApp may arrive sooner than later following feature’s announcement via the company’s official Twitter feed. That’s based on recent reports indicating that the feature is rolling out to some users via the beta variant of the WhatsApp app. More directly, it’s rolling out unfinished deep within the APK for the app.
That means it isn’t currently available in a user-facing form but that the code to enable it is in place under the hood. That comes complete with a toggle for turning the feature on.
Once live, WhatsApp integration with Facebook Rooms will bring multiple benefits. Not least of all, users would be able to take part in a group WhatsApp or Messenger call across both apps. That’s also without, the company has said, the need to download or install either. Instead, anybody who has the link to the group call will be able to participate at any time.
Messenger-based Rooms allows up to 50 users at a time. And Facebook is also expanding the number of users who can participate in a WhatsApp call in an upward direction. That number isn’t quite going to hit 50 just yet, but WhatsApp video calls will support up to eight WhatsApp to start.
Other Facebook-owned apps are getting integration too
Now, integration with Facebook’s Messenger is intended as part of the company’s competitive efforts against Zoom and others. Group video calling has expanded rapidly along with ongoing health concerns worldwide. The apps have been utilized for everything from student-teacher interactions to work. In light of stay-at-home and sheltering orders against large gatherings, they have also seen adoption for virtual family gatherings.
Facebook Messenger serves as a near-ubiquitous platform for getting people together already. The company has an enormous user base to tap into. But it isn’t the only platform in use and it isn’t the only popular platform. So integrating with WhatsApp in a platform-agnostic manner will make the feature more appealing to more users. That will also help it compete better with Zoom since no downloads will be needed.
Moreover, WhatsApp isn’t the only Facebook-owned platform that Rooms is coming too. The company also indicated that it will be launching similar integration across Instagram and bringing Rooms to its Portal product line. That should help spread its use among users who aren’t on Facebook but are on other Facebook-owned services. But, potentially, it could extend Rooms well beyond Facebook users of all stripes.
When is this coming, exactly?
The appearance of Rooms integration in WhatsApp suggests that finalization of that will likely occur sooner than expected. In fact, the current expectation is that it may arrive over the course of the next several weeks. Most likely, some regions will see the feature before others but that hasn’t been specified either.
Once the feature does appear, if the UI remains unchanged between now and finalization, the integration will show up under the video-calling menu in WhatsApp. That’s under the new call options in the WhatsApp Calls tab, based on the images shared by WABetaInfo.
