Big group? No problem—WhatsApp voice chats are now for everyone

WhatsApp is expanding its voice chat feature to smaller groups, offering a new audio hangout experience similar to a personal podcast. This feature allows users to seamlessly join or leave the voice chat at any time without notifying other members.

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WhatsApp Groups have supported voice chats as long as there are plenty of members in it but now the messaging app is removing those limits and making it available for the smaller groups as well.

For a short while, voice conversations were popular, with applications like Clubhouse making a lot of money. Now, WhatsApp is making the capability available to more people. Over the next several days, WhatsApp will roll out the new Group functionality to both iOS and Android users.

WhatsApp refers to the new upgrade as a new audio hangout, as it allows a small group of messaging app users to have a voice chat akin to a personal podcast.

WhatsApp also states that beginning a voice conversation does not inform or ring anybody (the user), making it simple to join or quit the hangout whenever they wish.

The platform also keeps the voice chat pinned to the bottom of your conversation so you can readily access call controls, and new users may join whenever they want and see who else has joined. The upgrade introduces features previously available on X Space and Clubhouse to WhatsApp.

How to use this feature?

How do you initiate these voice conversations in a WhatsApp group, then? To enable voice chat in the group, just slide up from the chat box at the bottom of your conversation and hold it for a few seconds.

We were able to test the functionality on WhatsApp on our Android phone, and it already functions for groups of three people. By following these instructions, you may quickly initiate a voice conversation.

WhatsApp promises that voice conversations are automatically safeguarded by end-to-end encryption, just like all other chats, calls, and media files, but it doesn't explain why this feature was necessary to roll out at this time.