Zoom has offered the ability to change backgrounds and use virtual backgrounds on Windows, macOS, iOS, and iPadOS for quite some time now. The company has now released an update that brings the feature to Android.
With the latest Zoom update (version 5.3.52640.0920), you can now use one of the backgrounds offered by Zoom or choose an image from your gallery to step up your video calls. You can enable virtual backgrounds on Zoom by tapping on the ‘More’ option and choosing ‘Virtual Background’.
As Android Police notes, the virtual background feature is limited to images for now. On other platforms, you can use either images or videos as backgrounds. We could expect the company to bring support for video backgrounds in a future update, at least to phones with decent hardware to handle the extra load.
Apart from the new virtual background functionality, the latest update improves calendar integration sync and adds the option to share device audio. There’s even an option to select your own breakout room, a feature that splits the Zoom meeting into up to 50 separate sessions. You can take a look at all the features introduced with the latest update in the official changelog below:
- General features
- Calendar Integration sync improvement
- Enhanced scheduling with default settings
- Share Device Audio
- Virtual Background support for Android
- Meeting features
- Self-select Breakout Room
- Chat features
- Hide chat bots in IM list
- Enhanced Link Preview
- Enhanced Search
- Mark as Unread for images and files
- Resolved Issues
- Resolved issue with Breakout rooms not following the main session’s settings/restrictions
- Minor bug fixes
So yeah, if you’re someone who has been waiting to use virtual backgrounds on your Zoom meetings from your Android phone, you can head right to the Google Play Store to grab the latest update.
Download Zoom for Android
