WhatsApp has been hard at work updating its calling system in recent months. In July, the appincreased its limit for group calls to 15 participantsfrom seven previously, which was a significant improvement. Then, Meta took things even further by integrating support for up to 32 participants if you added more people after starting the call. Now, WhatsApp is working on making it possible to start a call with 32 participants from the get-go.
WABetaInfo discovereda few minor tweaks in the latest beta for WhatsApp, specifically in the calls tab on version 2.23.19.16. Rather than displayingcall links, the call screen has now simplified things and just shows who you can call. Additionally, the floating call button has been updated with a plus icon, which is presumably where the call links have been moved to, but there’s no confirmation.
On the maximum participants front, users were initially limited to selecting 14 contacts for a call in addition to themselves, giving us the expanded 15-person cap introduced in July. At that time, Meta also CEO Mark Zuckerberg also announced that support for 32-person calls was in the works. However, beta testers who received early access to 32-person groups reported not being able to start a call with that many users — instead, they were limited to inviting 14 people up front, and could only add the other 17 participants after the fact. Now, beta testers will be able to invite up to 31 participants when starting a call.
The call tab has been updated to show this new change, prompting users toSelectup to 31 peopleinstead of the usual 14. This new update is rolling out via theGoogle Play beta program, which is currently full, but theAPK can also be sideloadedif you were unable to register for the program. The ability to quickly start 32-person calls is currently only available to some beta testers, and availability is account-based, but WABetaInfo reports that more people are expected to get it soon.
It is currently unknown when this feature will be available outside the beta channel, and there is a chance that it may be taken away before it ever makes its way to the stable release cycle. While 32 participants might seem like a lot of people in one call, WhatsApp is often used by companies, families, and even educational groups to communicate simultaneously. Multi-person calls aren’t uncommon for the service, so this kind of improvement is much needed — and if Meta wants its app to be taken seriously as a competitor to business-focused communication apps like Slack and Zoom, this was a step it essentially had to take.
