WhatsApp has web support but using this version requires you to connect using a smartphone and it needs to be powered on and connected. Now, the company has released a new beta that brings support for multi-device without the need for a phone.
This is one of the most anticipated features and a couple of months ago, the company’s executives talked about the feature being in development. If you are interested to check it out, you can enroll yourself by following the procedure described by the company. For using this, you will need to be on the latest beta version of WhatsApp for Android or iOS.
The company says that it has developed new technologies that ensure that even on multiple devices, messages sync while maintaining end-to-end encryption. It adds that each message is individually encrypted using the established pairwise encryption session with each device. Also, messages are not stored on the server after they are delivered.
It solves one of the major issues of the WhatsApp Web version — requiring a phone to be connected all the time. The company says that by requiring the phone to perform all operations, companion devices are slower and frequently get disconnected, especially when the phone has a poor connection, its battery is running low, or the application process gets killed by the phone’s operating system.
It also allows for only a single companion device to be operative at a time, meaning people can’t be on a call in Portal while checking their messages on their PC. The new WhatsApp multi-device architecture developed by the company removes these hurdles and it no longer requires a smartphone to be the source for everything and still keeps user data seamlessly and securely synchronized and private.
However, not everything is working at this stage. The company has shared a list of features that are currently not working with the beta version of multi-device support.
- Viewing live location on companion devices.
- Pinning chats on WhatsApp Web or Desktop.
- Joining, viewing, and resetting group invites from WhatsApp Web and Desktop. For these functions, you’ll need to use your phone.
- Messaging or calling someone who is using a very old version of WhatsApp on their phone won’t work from your linked device.
- Calling from Portal or WhatsApp Desktop to linked devices that aren’t enrolled in the multi-device beta.
- Other WhatsApp accounts on your Portal won’t work unless those accounts have joined the multi-device beta.
- WhatsApp Business users can’t edit their business name or labels from WhatsApp Web or Desktop.
Currently, there’s no specific date for when the company is planning to roll out this feature to all users. The firm is initially rolling out this feature to its existing beta users. Over the coming months, it plans to start adding it as an opt-in beta feature for a small number of users on stable versions of the app.
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