In recent years the WhatsApp video calls have become more and more common, but users don’t always want (or can) appear in front of the camera. For this reason, it appears that WhatsApp is about to introduce some animated avatars that will ‘talk’ during video calls, instead of users’ normal profile photos. A pinch of metaverse in the messaging app.
WhatsApp will introduce animated avatars during video calls
Analyzing the beta of WhatsApp, the experts of WABetaInfo have found a really cool new feature. If until today when turning off the camera (or in case of poor signal) other users saw your profile picture, soon there will be a extra function.
A new button with the wording “Switch to Avatar” pallows you to switch between the live webcam feed and animated avatars. At the moment the button doesn’t work yet, so even beta users can’t test it. But if WhatsApp has integrated the pop-up, soon the function should also come.
WhatsApp video calls they don’t offer funny filters like Snapchat or Google Duo. But with the new avatars surely the video calling experience will become much less ‘orthodox’ on WA than we are used to.
It is currently unclear whether the animated avatars will be in 2D or 3D. But this new integration is part of Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp, to ‘accustom’ users to the metaverse. In fact, in social networks such as Horizon for Quest VR we have seen how avatars will play an important role in the future of the metaverse.
This feature could train users to recognize themselves in their avatars. A first step to then use the same virtual “face” also in social networks and in all the other services that Meta is developing.
As always, it is difficult to assess when this feature will arrive in the standard version of WhatsApp. Depending on the difficulty of implementation, there are beta tests that last a few days and others that continue for several weeks. We will keep you posted.