Some of thebest chat apps on Androidare well-regarded for their cross-platform sync, allowing you to access your messages from anywhere. Some of the older apps like Telegram offer virtually the same features on the web as your primary device. WhatsApp is the mostpopular encrypted messaging appand is platform-agnostic too. However, its implementation has several long-standing issues like duplicate missed call alerts on linked devices. That particular problem was recently remedied, at least partially, but Meta still has a lot of work on its plate.
What is WhatsApp multi-device?
Not to be confused with the recently introducedsupport for multiple accountson the same phone,WhatsApp multi deviceallows you to link multiple phones, tablets, and computers to one primary phone, so they share simultaneous access to the same WhatsApp account. The feature was unveiled late in 2021, with support for up to four linked devices, all of which relayed data to WhatsApp servers through your primary smartphone.
WhatsApp’s multi-device architecture before and after the revamp
In 2022, Meta gave multi-device a complete cloud infrastructure overhaul, and uncoupled all the linked devices from the primary phone to communicate with WhatsApp servers independently. With this change, linked devices can now send and receive calls or messages even when the primary phone is offline. This gives users the added convenience of using WhatsApp from any device they have on hand, even in situations where the primary device ran out of charge or got misplaced.
Problematic ghost missed calls
For anyone using WhatsApp every day, one of the biggest conveniences ought to be the flexibility with voice and video calls. All your linked devices will ring for any incoming call, and you can answer the call on whichever device is most convenient to use. In fact, you can place a second call using a linked device even if one of your gadgets is already engaged in a call.
Screenshot from primary phone which answered the call(left), missed call alert on linked device(right)
However, after hanging up, you may notice thatevery device records a missed call, except for the one you used for the call. As a result, I would often end up returning missed calls, only to be informed we already spoke earlier. This behavior eroded my faith in WhatsApp’s missed call alerts, because it just isn’t practical to check on your linked devices to tell genuine missed calls from duplicates. We wrote at length about this in January, close to a year after WhatsApp reworked the multi-device architecture, because that should have been sufficient time to fix the annoyance.
A solution emerges
Old banners for call notifications in a WhatsApp chat
Several UI elements have been reworked on WhatsApp in the last few months. The app used to show call history in a conversation using banners, like the ones you see when people rename a group chat or a new participant joins. The new UI ditches this approach and shows calls you placed as your chat bubble. If your contacts reach you on voice or video, a chat bubble with the call details will show up from their end in the chat. The new system is also more descriptive, showing the duration of conversations and other details.
New call notifications provide additional details
Thankfully, we spotted a recent beta version of WhatsApp taking the new call alerts in chats a step further, mentioning if missed voice or video calls were answered on another device. This additional detail in missed call alerts gave us reassurance that the missed call alert was a duplicate, and the conversation took place through another device earlier. Effectively, this small change addresses our problem with duplicate missed call alerts.
Although WhatsApp has progressed in the right direction with this change, two important pain points remain. Firstly, the new missed call alerts mentioning I used another device for the call are only visible on my primary smartphone. As a result, I’m forced to check the primary phone every time I want to know the true status of a call. Secondly, my primary device still doesn’t tell me which linked computer, tablet, or phone was used to receive the call, even though WhatsApp probably captures this information through its updated multi-device architecture.
A description like “call answered on your Pixel 7” would just be more helpful than the current “Accepted on another device” message. If missed call descriptions specify the device used, we could’ve lived with them showing up only on the primary smartphone. Even so, WhatsApp has no excuse for several other missing features and alerts on linked devices considering how long multi-device support has been available.
There’s a lot more left to fix
WhatsApp has always treated linked devices as second-class citizens, giving them just the essential features while rarely adding new functionality. For instance, my primary smartphone running the latest WhatsApp beta is all caught up with status updates,Channels, andCommunity updates, but my linked smartphone can’t even post status updates or edit ones I posted earlier. Ephemeral status updates have been a WhatsApp feature since 2017, and my linked smartphone has the floating action buttons to upload or edit updates too, but tapping them simply shows a toast message the feature isn’t available.
Understandably, linked devices are also way behind on some of the more recent changes WhatsApp developers have been working on, like Communities for larger group interactions, Channels for broadcast messaging, and other stylistic updates meant to give the UI a fresh appearance.
Linked devices don’t supportcall link creation, which allows convenient call scheduling just like on Google Meet and other video conferencing apps. A quick trip to the app’s Settings page on a linked Android phone or tablet reveals even more missing features like customizable avatars and contact sharing via QR codes. It’s about time WhatsApp got its act together and gave us feature parity across linked devices instead of bringing new features to the primary devices only.
