Whatsapp has officially rolled out a feature that allows users to use their WhatsApp account on up to five phones simultaneously. To date, WhatsApp didn’t have multi-device login support on phones. It did have the feature to use one phone and multiple desktop companions, however, multiple phones were out of reach.
Meta’s founder Mark Zuckerberg took it to Instagram and Facebook to announce the feature. He said that the users can now log in to their WhatsApp accounts on up to five phones at once. The feature is still rolling out so you won’t be able to use it right away. It will take a few weeks for it to arrive on all the devices but the wait is of just a few weeks for sure.
The feature doesn’t compromise on its end-to-end encryption functionality, unlike Telegram. WhatsApp has developed a tech to sync messages across five phones and desktop companions while keeping the end-to-end encryption intact. It means that even if your phone is switched off, you can use WhatsApp on another smartphone with ease.
WhatsApp is building up its multi-device login functionality as we go further. For one, if your WhatsApp account is not active for a long period on your primary phone, it will automatically log out of the accounts from all companion devices. It is a security precaution to ensure that your account falls into the wrong hands.
Apart from that, you can switch between devices without requiring a sign-out on the first one. You can stay signed in on multiple devices at once which is good for multitasking in case you need it.
The instant messaging app currently has more than 2 billion users. For context, that is 2,000,000,000 and that’s a huge number. Rolling out the feature across this large customer base will take some time but you can expect it to arrive in the coming weeks. WhatsApp has been updating its features list forever. For instance, it is working on Telegram-like Channels on the app that would allow you to broadcast to a large audience and most importantly, there’s more to come.
