Google Duo
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Google Duo was a proprietary
voice over IP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also known as IP telephony, is a set of technologies used primarily for voice communication sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. VoIP enables voice calls to be transmitted as ...
(VoIP) and videotelephony service released in 2016 by
Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
and merged into its Google Meet product in 2022. It was available for Android, IOS and
web browser A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's scr ...
s. It let users make and receive one-to-one and group audio and video calls with other Duo users in high definition, using
end-to-end encryption End-to-end encryption (E2EE) is a method of implementing a secure communication system where only communicating users can participate. No one else, including the system provider, telecom providers, Internet providers or malicious actors, can ...
by default. Duo could be used either with a phone number or a Google account, allowing users to call someone from their contact list. Google Duo was announced at Google's developer conference on May 18, 2016, and began its worldwide release on August 16, 2016. Google announced in 2022 that the service would be merged into Google Meet, and it was shut down by the end of the year.


History

In December 2016, Google Duo replaced Hangouts within the suite of Google apps device manufacturers must install in order to gain access to the
Google Play Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store, Play Store, or sometimes the Android Store (and was formerly Android Market), is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certifie ...
, with Hangouts instead becoming optional. In August 2020, it was reported that Google was planning to eventually merge Google Duo with the business-oriented Google Meet. In December 2021 this objective had been dropped, but Duo continued to be available and updated. In June 2022, Google reversed course and announced that Duo and Meet would, in fact, be merged. The merger began in August, with the Duo mobile app renamed Meet and the original Meet app renamed "Google Meet (original)" and scheduled to be phased out. The Duo and Meet web apps completed their merger in 2024.


Technologies

Google Duo was optimized for low- bandwidth mobile networks through
WebRTC WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) is a free and open-source project providing web browsers and mobile applications with real-time communication (RTC) via application programming interfaces (APIs). It allows audio and video communication and ...
and uses QUIC over UDP. Optimization was further achieved through the degradation of video quality through monitoring network quality. For packet loss concealment, Duo used Google DeepMind. In February 2021, Google announced a new very low- bitrate codec for speech compression called " Lyra" that could operate with network speeds as low as 3 kbps that avoided robotic voice audio and that was to be rolled out to Duo. According to a technical study commissioned by Google from the Signals Research Group in 2017 that compared degradation time over 3G, 4G, 5G and
Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for Wireless LAN, local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by ...
, Duo provided the highest voice and video quality of any service or app.


Features

"Knock Knock" showed a live preview of the caller before the recipient picked up, which Google said was to "make calls feel more like an invitation rather than an interruption". In March 2017, it was announced that Google Duo would let users make audio-only calls. The feature was first launched in Brazil, with a global rollout in April. A year later in March 2018, video and voice messages were added to Duo. Users could leave messages up to 30 seconds long for contacts who were unavailable. Support for eight-person video calls in both the iOS and Android versions of the app was added in May 2019. In line with similar group calling offerings from FaceTime,
Skype Skype () was a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for IP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also had instant messaging, file transfer, ...
,
WhatsApp WhatsApp (officially WhatsApp Messenger) is an American social media, instant messaging (IM), and voice-over-IP (VoIP) service owned by technology conglomerate Meta. It allows users to send text, voice messages and video messages, make vo ...
, and
Messenger Messenger, Messengers, The Messenger or The Messengers may refer to: People * Courier, a person or company that delivers messages, packages, or mail * Messenger (surname) * Bicycle messenger, a bicyclist who transports packages through cities * M ...
, participants could join or leave the conversation at any time. Google Duo increased the maximum group size to 12 at the end of March 2020, and to 32 by May 2022.


See also

* Google Meet * Google Messages *
List of video telecommunication services and product brands A list is a set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of the list-maker, but ...


References


External links

* {{Google LLC Discontinued Google software Android (operating system) software IOS software Cross-platform software 2016 software Videotelephony