Samsung always prepares new software features for its latest flagships, and this year’s Galaxy S21 series is not treated any differently. The smartphones were launched with One UI 3.1 which brought a number of new features, such as Google Discover on the home screen and Director’s View. There is another addition that is especially useful at a time when video calls have become the primary form of communication for many of us: personalized video call effects.
The resource can be found at Settings> Advanced features> Video call effects. Once activated, supported applications get a floating bubble that allows you to play with some video effects. You will be able to choose between blur, color and background image, all three are self-explanatory.
Overlapping video call effects in compatible applications.
While all of this works technically, the results are a bit janky and amateur video-effect-hour. You can test them on a friendly call to see if they work well before using them at your next professional meeting.
We were able to confirm that these custom video effects are currently only available for four applications: Google Duo, Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Cisco Webex. While all of these applications already support some effects natively, the feature balances the experience between them. We hope to see compatibility with more apps like Telegram or Google Meet in the near future.
