Facebook’s new video chat feature Messenger Room officially went live on Thursday. As video chat platforms like Zoom, Skype, Google Meet have now become the major avenue for staying in touch during this battle with a pandemic, Facebook took note of this and decided to up its game in order to be on a par with the others by revamping the functionality of its video networking service. This alteration spawned what we now have as Facebook Messenger Room.

With this new video feature, Facebook users can create a video chat room through Facebook or Messenger with a phone or desktop and, add or invite up to 50 people to chat on video – even if they don’t have a Facebook account – with no time limit to the call length. And as stated by Facebook, soon users will also be able to join and initiate room chats via Instagram, WhatsApp and Portal smart display.

As a host, you can make the room public to your friends, or choose and set limits on who can see and join your room, and can also remove people for violating Facebook rules or lock the room if you do not want more participants. You can start and share rooms on Facebook through News Feed, Groups and Events, so it’s easy for you to drop by whenever you want. You can also share rooms to people who don’t have a Facebook account by simply sharing the link with them.

How to Create a Facebook Messenger Room Chat

1. Ensure you have the latest version of Facebook and Messenger apps on your device. If not, you can download it form Google Play Store or App Store. 
2. Launch the messenger app
3. Tap the People tab located at the bottom-right of the screen. 
4. Tap Create a Room, and select the people who you want to invite.

You can still use Messenger to perform one-on-one calls and video chats or group calls and group video chats just as you could before. When it comes to privacy protection, messenger room doesn’t offer the end-to-end encryption, but the company assures users that it will not view or listen to calls made on the platform.