WhatsApp video calling: Initial impressions after using the feature for 3 weeks

WhatsApp has announced that it is launching video calling for everyone across devices. The feature rollout will be done in a staged format just like any other feature deployment to ensure that there are no last minutes issues plaguing hundreds of users. The company has been working on video calling since almost a year now as the earliest report goes back to December 2015.

The reason that the company has taken almost a year to test the feature is because of the massive user base of the multimedia messaging platform spread across multiple operating systems and architectures. The company does not want any service interruption or severe bug for all the users that are using the service. After months of leaks at screenshots and feature reports from the closed beta testers, the company launched the feature has a hidden feature in Android WhatsApp beta. The company seems to have stepped on the gas regarding introducing new features alongside working on new features in last one year.

The amount of leaks regarding the upcoming features has increased dramatically after the launch of official Google Play Store Beta program to help the company by testing the latest features. Even though most of the features are hidden and can only be enabled by messing around in the settings preference file in the WhatsApp system files in root. The features arrive iOS versions before they make their way on the Android version but to install the iOS beta you need to have a jailbroken iPhone which unfortunately was not available.

The video calling user interface could be enabled from back in August, but the feature was not enabled from the backend and WhatsApp had to enable it from its servers. Video calls could not get through even if both the smartphone has the video calling user interface unlocked using the settings preference file. I enabled the feature after every WhatsApp Beta update hoping that the company had flicked the button to turn on the video calls for beta testers.

Immediately after the launch of the update around midnight of 24 October, I enabled the feature in WhatsApp. I still could not figure out if the feature was activated because none of my friends was enrolled for WhatsApp beta on Google Play Store. I persuaded one to install the beta and tried the Video calling feature which marks the gradual evolution of WhatsApp as a fully featured app. The video calls could not connect two of the five times that we tested with the video quality being bad despite being on Wi-Fi. The video was choppy at parts and skipped a few frames with the general resolution never going beyond 360p.

I have continuously been using Video calling feature on the app and the video calling now seems to scale up and down depending on the connection strength. Despite the calls being VoIP, the number of dropped video calls has been significant. But despite that the company is keen on collecting the data matrix of the number of video calls and the quality of those calls by adding a blank five-star rating after ever video calls for the users to rate it and provide reasons for adding a lower number of stars.

The video quality scaling along with better call connectivity marks a slight improvement in the quality. One thing to note is that the video calling UI orientation switches from portrait to landscape depending on the orientation of the smartphone.

The attention to detail makes me confident that the company is working on continuously improving the experience. During my limited testing because of lack of users of WhatsApp beta, I can say that the video calling quality is decent but lags behind in comparison to Google Duo or Skype. The data usage for video calls has improved in comparison to the video calls that were made three weeks back. Though, I do believe that the company can improve the quality of the video along with better-optimised data usage.