Originally published at: https://www.ogbongeblog.com/how-to-use-houseparty-app.html
With Nigeria under lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, people stuck at home are relying completely on the internet and entertainment apps, one of which is the Houseparty video chatting app. In this post, I want to share with you, how to use houseparty app.
You’ll first need to download the Houseparty app, which is available from both the App Store and Google Play. You can also use Houseparty on your computer either by installing the Chrome Extension, or downloading the Houseparty desktop app for Mac or Windows.
After installing it on your mobile phone or PC, you’ll also need to sign up with your email, phone number and a new username.
Once you’ve chosen that unique username, it’s time to link up the service to your contacts. You can opt to give the app access to your phone’s contact book, plus you can also pair the service with Facebook and Snapchat to spread your friend net as wide as possible.
If you’re struggling to find your friends via the contact book, Facebook and Snapchat integrations, you can also search for your friend’s username and add them that way. You can also add “nearby friends”.
Houseparty app will also automatically recognize your contacts and friends who have already signed up, allowing you to dive into chats almost instantly.
Once you have some friends there, you can start a houseparty.
How To Start HouseParty
When you launch the Houseparty mobile app, you will land on the home screen where you’ll probably get a brief glimpse of your own face with a “menu” overlay listing active party sessions, people you may know and some recent friends you’ve added.
Swipe from right to left over this pane and you’ll be taken to your inbox.
Swipe from left to right and you will be able to take photo or record video you can send to your contacts. This is called Houseparty Facemail.
If you can see active video sessions of friends who have already started their own party on the home screen, you can join the conversation.
But if you want to start your own party, swipe down on the popup menu and tap on the little plus sign in the top right corner.
You’ll be shown a full list of all your available contacts. Tap the ones that you want to party with, then click the green ‘invite to room’ button.
You can also tap the phone icon to start the call, or tap the wave icon to send your friend a notification letting them know you want to video chat.
You can also use the search bar in this panel to find contacts who aren’t appearing on your recently called list and add them to a chat.
When you’re in a live Houseparty session, your other contacts who log on to the Houseparty application will see it and can immediately join in with the chat.
Once you’re in a call you can use the buttons along the bottom of the screen to toggle your mic and camera on and off, switch between your device’s front and rear facing camera (if it has them).
While chatting one-on-one is easy to do in Houseparty, the app’s real purpose is to create rooms with multiple people (in other words, to host a house party) — you can have up to eight people in one room at a time. Each time another person joins, the screen will split again, so that you can see everyone at once.
When the screen splits for an uneven number of people, yours will remain the biggest video on the screen.
If your WiFi is terrible — your video will be switched off, but you can remain in the party on audio only mode.
To exit a call, just hit the cross icon in the bottom right corner of the screen.
How To Lock Your Houseparty Room
A nice feature of the houseparty app is the ability to lock your room so no one else can join.
Just hit the padlock at the bottom of the screen. People can still ask to join, but you can choose to ignore them.
If you want your rooms to lock automatically, head to your home screen, click the smiley face in the left and then hit the cog to go to the settings page. From there, turn on privacy mode, and you’ll never be in an open party again.
How To Turn Off Houseparty Notifications
Once you’ve downloaded the app and built up your houseparty contacts, the app will notify your contacts whenever you log in to the app and it will also notify you when your contacts log in to the app.
If you don’t want these notifications, just head to the Settings menu and disable the “Send Out My Notifications” and “Get My Friend’s Notifications” options.
If you don’t want notifications from certain contact head over to the Settings menu and “ghost” them.
I hope this helps.
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