Clubhouse Launches ‘Wave’ Feature to Let Users Invite Friends for Private Chats

After the feature was leaked last week, Clubhouse, a social audio app based in the United States, finally launched a feature on Thursday that allows users to virtually wave at friends within its audio-only chat app to indicate that they are available for a private conversation, in an effort to expand beyond public rooms with thousands of listeners.

The company revealed the news at a surprise town hall on Thursday. The feature is now available to all iOS and Android users.

Clubhouse Wave Feature

To send a Wave, swipe right on the Hallway or tap the dots icon at the bottom left of the screen. By tapping the waving hand emoji in the app, you can invite others to a live audio room. They will get a notification that you said hello, and know that you’re open to chatting. They can now opt to join your call and be added to an audio room.

The beautiful thing is that you can Wave at as many friends as you like, and you can do other things while waiting for them to respond. You can also explore the hallways, find more friends to wave at, or jump into some rooms. The tiny Wave bar will come along with you, in case people decide they can’t talk anymore and need to cancel your waves. And if you background the app, the waves are paused so you don’t get pulled into a room without realizing it.

Clubhouse, which pioneered the “social audio” feature that Facebook and Twitter have subsequently replicated, intends to allow users to hold private chats, according to Co-Founder and Chief Executive Paul Davison. “A lot of people know us for bigger conversations, but the reason people stay so long is they’re finding their friends and meeting new people,” he said in an interview.

If someone does not react right away, you can continue to utilise Clubhouse as usual. To avoid misunderstanding, the company also states that if you have the app running in the background, you will not be automatically pulled into a room if someone responds.

Clubhouse appears to want to promote more casual, sociable, little moments in its app; which has been linked with professional, appointment-based experiences as of late. The company released its app for Android in May and removed its waitlist in July. Hence, there may be more individuals to chat with now than when it first began.