Chatting face-to-face live is perfect for special moments when you want to see and hear the voices of people you care about most. Facebook just announced the introduction of video chat in Messenger Lite, the slimmed down version of Messenger for Android intended for people with older Android devices or slower Internet connections.
Messenger Lite is under 10MB in size, making it fast to install and quick to start up while offering core messaging capabilities like sending text, photos, links, and audio calls to people with either Messenger Lite or Messenger.
With many social media platforms now within reach, video chats have become an essential part of everyday communication in today’s messaging experience. This, coupled with the popularity of the chat, has prompted the social media site to push the service to even the Lite app users.
In a blog post, Facebook noted that “Video chats are incredibly popular for people who use the Messenger core app. In 2017, there were 17 billion video chats in Messenger, twice as many video chats compared to 2016. Now people who use Messenger Lite can have the same rich and expressive face-to-face conversations as those who use the core Messenger app, no matter which technology they use or have access to.”
Related Article: Facebook Messenger Lite is a lightweight version of Messenger that’s faster and uses less data
How it works
To get started, you have to own the latest version of Messenger Lite on your mobile. Open an existing conversation or find the person you’d like to chat with in your contact list, then tap the video icon on the upper right corner of the screen. You can also upgrade an audio call to a video chat while still in the call by tapping the video icon in the bottom right corner of the screen.