San Francisco, Aug 7 (IANS): Meta-owned messaging platform WhatsApp is rolling out a new voice chat feature for group conversations on Android beta.

Beta users will see a new voice waveform icon within a group chat, reports WABetaInfo.

Selecting the waveform icon will automatically start the voice chat, and a dedicated interface will appear.

All participants in the group can join the voice chat at any time. If no one joins the voice conversation during the first 60 minutes, it will automatically end.

However, anyone can start a new audio conversation whenever they choose. The new voice chat feature is only available to certain groups. The feature is generally available for groups with more than 32

participants, however only up to 32 participants might be able to join a voice chat. The main benefit of the voice chat feature is that it makes it possible to start a call without ringing everyone in the group's phones.

However, all group participants will get a silent notification when a new voice chat starts in their groups, and the group icon will show a tiny thumbnail representing a voice chat within the chat list.

This feature is protected by end-to-end encryption to make sure that only the participants of a voice call can listen to its contents.

The voice chat feature is currently available to some users that install the latest WhatsApp beta for Android update, however, this appears as a wider release so some users on the stable version of the app might also be able to experiment with the feature, the report said.

On Sunday, it was reported that the messaging platform had released an admin review feature for group chats on Android beta.