Your WhatsApp avatar is customizable and comes in various attractive poses, allowing you to be even more expressive when messaging family and friends.
Meta is testing WhatsApp avatars
WABetaInforeports that some users of the WhatsApp Android beta may already start seeing a new category labeled “Avatar” in the WhatsApp settings menu. There, people can choose between ready-made avatars or customize their own.
This isn’t too dissimilar from Apple’s Memoji feature or Bitmoji-style avatars on Instagram and Facebook (plus Instagram Stories and DMs).
You can customize hair and eye color, adjust skin tone, choose between hairstyles, dress up your avatar in various outfits and so on. The goal is to make an avatar resemble your real-life appearance as closely as possible.
The system will then automatically create a sticker pack with your avatar in various poses. You may use your saved avatar to spice up your messaging game, as well as share the entire sticker pack with friends and family, and more.
As Meta builds out its metaverse, the avatar will be crucial in personalizing one’s identity in the virtual world. When wearing a Meta headset, your avatar represents you in the virtual world. It’s how people experience your persona in the metaverse.
How to create your Facebook and Instagram avatar
To create an avatar from scratch in the Facebook app, touch your profile photo in the bottom-right corner to go to your profile, then hitAvatars.
You can also create your Facebook avatar atfacebook.com/avatarmaker.net.
On Instagram, go to your profile by hitting your profile picture in the bottom-right corner, chooseEdit Profileat the top and then hitCreate avatar.
Your avatar will sync across Facebook and Instagram provided you’ve turned on the option to sync your Facebook and Instagram profiles.
When will WhatsApp launch avatars?
The WhatsApp avatar is currently limited to the WhatsApp Beta for Android 2.22.21.3. It may be some time before WhatsApp rolls out avatars to all users.
The current implementation is a bit rough around the edges. For example, the beta wouldn’t let you fully customize your avatar (this is coming in the next beta update).
Over the coming weeks, Meta is going to be gathering feedback from its beta users. After that, we should have a better idea of when the WhatsApp avatar might launch to all users via a future update to the WhatsApp app [App Store link].
Other new features coming to WhatsApp
WABetaInfo has been unearthing upcoming WhatsApp features from beta code for several years. Recently, it dug up info on interesting changes coming to WhatsApp.Read:How to message anyone on WhatsApp without saving their number first
For instance, you’ll be able to mute large group chats to help reduce notification load. Creating polls in one-to-one chats and managing media auto-download settings have been in the works for some time, too.
