Google Duo now supports 8 participants in a call in both Android and iOS

Google Duo, Android’s built-in video calling app has confirmed that it will now support up to 8 participants in one single video call in comparison to 4 participants before. The increase in number of participants is available in Android and iOS across the globe.

It seems the trend now for video calling apps is to increase the number of participants in one single call. The announcement came in after other video calling apps increased their number of participants as well.

Google Duo app allows eight-person video call in both Android and iOS

This development came just days after Microsoft increased the support on Skype now up to 50 participants, and Apple also rolled out support up to 32 participants now on FaceTime.

And joining in on the apps mentioned above are WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger which now allows 4 and 50 participants on a single video call respectively.

According to reports, although Google Duo is the default video chat service for Google’s smart displays, the functionality is exclusive to mobile only at launch. This means that Duo web clients can’t make a group call.

If you want to make a video call through a browser, you will have to do it using another Google video calling service, Hangouts.

This is Google’s enterprise-focused service and is a better option for video calls for web for now. The downside for Hangouts though is, there are reports that this service is solely available to enterprise users only starting next year.

Google Duo will get another feature on mobile – Data Saving Mode

When we are on our phones, we tend to lose track of time when catching up with our friends and loved ones. Unfortunately when you are on your data, these video calling apps exhaust your data pretty good.

Now, Google Duo will also roll out a useful feature for users who frequently uses mobile data to make a call. Aside from the increase in number of participants, Google Duo will now have a data saving mode.

This feature will automatically limit the mobile data usage while you are on a Google Duo video call. If anything, this feature will help a user conserve data on your smartphone.

The data saving mode on Google Duo is only available to a few countries at the moment, India, Brazil and Indonesia. But Google promises to release the feature to more countries in the coming weeks.

Furthermore, Google has made Duo a fun and a more interactive video calling app. You can now send a personalized video message if the person you are calling can’t take your call. You can even add drawings, emojis, and texts to the video message to give it a more personalized look.

Finally, Google has added an end-to-end encryption and an option to join or exit a video chat on Google Duo to make the experience more secure and more seamless. All these exciting new features in Google Dup are now available and ready to use on both Android and iOS.