Messenger Rooms get Zoom-like backgrounds, more mobile-friendly features

Facebook’s Messenger Rooms, a group chat feature that allows you to connect up to 50 people in a video call, got an overhaul on mobile. 

Now, users can create, edit and manage their Rooms, and well as share and discover them, all in the Messenger app on their phones. Rooms you’ve joined, as well as the option to create a new Room, will now be on top of your Chats tab, making them easier to find. 

More advanced features like scheduling a Room for later, as well as customizing the audience that can join a room, are also available from messenger. 

The Rooms themselves are also a bit more customizable now, with the ability to set the Room’s background to your own photos and videos. Yes, exactly like you can in Zoom, which seems to be the videoconferencing app everyone is trying to emulate. 

Facebook pointed out that Rooms already support 360-degree backgrounds and mood lighting filters, too. 

The stronger integration with Messenger is a logical step for Rooms, which were initially far more integrated with Facebook itself. After all, Messenger is Facebook’s primary chat app, which is where you’d probably want to go if you wanted to start a group video call. Facebook seems to be generally working to strengthen Messenger as a one-stop-shop for chats, having recently started integrating Instagram chat with Messenger. 

The new features are rolling out now on mobile, though the customizable backgrounds might take a few weeks to arrive. The whole package should also come to the Messenger desktop app “in the coming months,” a Facebook rep said.