WhatsApp video calls now have backgrounds and filters

WhatsApp is catching up with Google Meet and Zoom.

On Tuesday, the company announced that it had added backgrounds and filters to video calls. The filters offered include options such as Warm, Cool, Black and White, Dreamy, and Fisheye. You can also choose backgrounds such as living room, office, beach, forest and sunset. If none of this works for you, there is also the option to simply blur your background and hide the horrible mess that is behind you.

Finally, the Retouch and Low Light options are there to make your video calls more “lively and enjoyable.”

Based on WhatsApp's examples, the filters and backgrounds it offers seem fine, but aren't as fun as the stuff you get on Google Meet, for example.

The popular messenger's video calling feature has long been sufficient, but it lags far behind in features compared to other video calling apps. In particular, the ability to clear up the chaos in my living room was a very important feature for me with Meet. Now that WhatsApp has it too, I would be more likely to take a business call via Meta's messaging app.

Excited to try out the new filters, I updated and launched the WhatsApp app on my iPhone, but the filters and backgrounds that were supposed to be available via a new icon that appears in the top right corner during a video call were not available. WhatsApp says the effects will be available to everyone “in the coming weeks.”