Looking for video call functionality on Whatsapp. The WhatsApp Web doesn’t seem to support it. Any app that does? It will need to connect to a USB webcam, and to a bluetooth headset for sound and mic.
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Hi
Kinda bad news, but WhatsApp officially doesn’t support calls on web. Calls are supported only on their “desktop clients”, which sadly don’t support Linux.
Workarounds have come up and gone on and off but I’m not aware of any functional alternative third party client as of today.
If you wish to experiment, WhatsApp on Android now allows you to link an alternate Android devices in addition to your main phone. So you can install WhatsApp on an Android emulator, use it as a linked device and use it for video call. You’ll have to do a bit of tinkering in order to get Android emulator running. (Beware, WhatsApp is known to arbitrarily block accounts for “suspicious activity” and they may consider emulator as suspicious)
Another easier option would be to buy a phone stand and fix your phone at a distance on your table. Then use scrcpy to mirror your phone screen on your laptop and interact with it via your keybeard mouse. You can also turn off the phone screen without interrupting the call or screen mirroring. This will be using your phone camera.
I know, neither of these answer your question, but thats all I know atm.
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Can you tell me about scrcpy?
I have a feeling that the Android emulator is going to struggle with connecting to my external webcam and my bluetooth handset.
Sure
This app mirrors your android phone / tablet screen to your laptop in a window using ADB and lets you use your keyboard / mouse as input.
Here for eg. I have scrpy mirroring my phone, where I’ve opened camera app. I can control it via my laptop by clicking.
To use it you’ll have to enable developer settings in your app and toggle on USB Debugging. Then install scrcpy package via pacman on your system.
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