While some of us might only be using WhatsApp for a couple of years, the platform has been around for a long, long time. In all of its time, WhatsApp has evolved magnificently as well. Those of you who have been using its fancy features – like statuses, video, and audio calls – should know that these didn’t exist from the beginning. When the platform was newly launched, it only offered one feature – seamless instant messaging. This internet-powered messenger was one of a kind back then.
But as more and more social media platforms emerged with time, the multitude of their features gave WhatsApp a tough competition. In an attempt to beat that competition and stay relevant to their audience, the platform adopted features like voice and video calling. As a result, it’s still at the top of its game despite being older than most other platforms.
Over time, conference video calls were also introduced to the platform, which is another popular feature with WhatsApp users today. Lately, some of us our readers are coming to us with a specific query about going on video calls. In this blog, we’ll attempt to resolve this query for all of you. Let’s get started!
When You Video Call Someone on Whatsapp, Can They See You Before They Accept the Call?
We promise not to waste a single minute of your time. You want to know if someone can see you before accepting your video call on WhatsApp, right? Well, the answer is: No, they can’t.
As you video call someone from this app, all they see is the video being captured live by their own front camera. For those of you wondering if this is a new feature, we reassure you that it isn’t.
WhatsApp video calls have the same UI today as day 1; the platform has never been known to display the real-time video of the caller to the recipient of that call without picking it up.
What details can they see before accepting your WhatsApp video call?
Now that we’ve ruled out the possibility of the recipient of your video call seeing your real-time video, you’d be curious as to what they CAN see, right? This one’s easy to answer.
As we mentioned above, when a person gets a WhatsApp video call, they see their own front-camera video on the full-screen.
Besides that, they’ll also see a thumbnail of your WhatsApp profile picture in the middle, with your name (as saved in their phonebook) and WhatsApp video call written right below it.
Towards the bottom end of the screen, they’ll see three floating icons, with a middle one bouncing up and down. This blue icon – with a white video camera drawn on it – is the one you use to pick the call up. You’ll also find Swipe up to accept written under it.
The icon towards its left has a red telephone receiver drawn on it and is used to hang up the call. Towards the right, you’ll notice a message window drawn on the icon; this one is used to reply to the call with a message. Here, you can either pick one of the WhatsApp template messages or custom-write your own.
Keep in mind that using either of these icons will result in the call being hung up; the only way to pick it up is by using the blue icon in the middle.
Is there any other platform where people can see you before they accept your video call?
We’ve already established above that WhatsApp doesn’t show the recipient of your video call your real-time video, not until they pick the call up. But since the question has come to your mind, it’s obvious that you might have heard or seen it somewhere.
This begs the question of whether there are other apps besides WhatsApp that follow this protocol for their video calls. The only platform which comes to mind is Skype; a Microsoft app dedicated to video calls which did show the recipient your real-time video, even before they picked the call.
Skype never made this feature a secret to their audience either. As you dialed a video call on it, you’d see a message on the screen, notifying you about your video being visible to the next party as their phone rang.
However, perhaps some users were finding the feature problematic, which is why in one of its later updates, Skype got rid of it. Keeping this incident in mind, we guess it’s a good thing WhatsApp never adopted it.
To wrap it up
With this, we’ve reached the end of today’s blog. Our discussion above revolved around WhatsApp and its video calls. We address a common FAQ about whether or not a recipient of your video call can see you before picking up the call, only to find out that they can’t.
Then, we talk about the details that do appear when you call someone; you’ll find a description of it above. Towards the end, we talked about how Skype had the feature once upon a time, but it’s no longer present on the platform today.
Do you have questions about video calling on other social media platforms as well? If you do, don’t hesitate to share those with us in the comments below. We might just be able to solve your fix!
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