Telegram Takes on Clubhouse with New Unlimited Voice Chats Feature

BY Mahit Huilgol

Published 19 Mar 2021

Telegram has updated its voice chat feature in the latest update. Starting now Telegram will support unlimited participants in voice chats. In other words, Telegram is removing the limit on participants in voice chats.

Last year Telegram announced voice chat feature and this is the biggest update so far. Previously, Telegram allowed users to broadcast a call for thousands of listners. The new update allows “millions of live listners” accross both public group and channels. Furthermore, the raise hand feature allows muted participants to get noticed and ask the admin to unmute.

Telegram also lets you to record voice chats to the saved messages folder. A red dot will appear while recording to all the participants will come to know that the call is being saved. Users will also get an option to create separate links for speakers and listeners. If privacy is a concern you can choose to stay private without displaying channel username. So you can join as your personal account or your channel name.

For example, the Presidents of Brazil and Turkey could meet for a talk in Pavel Durov’s Channel and answer questions from users without the risk of having their chat lists flooded with fan mail.”

It is fairly common for users to send message to the wrong group. If you choose to forward the wrong chat by mistake then you can press the X button to cancel before sending. Telegram now resumes play back when listening to long voice message.

Our Take

It is evident that Telegram’s revamped voice chat feature rivals Clubhouse. Early this month, Instagram introduced a Clubhouse rivalling feature called Live Room. Clubhouse is a new type of social media based on drop-in audio chat. People can discuss, listen and talk to each other in groups. Telegram has an edge over Clubhouse when it comes to privacy features.