Update on WhatsApp compatibility

Hello DumberOS fans,

We'd like to share everything that we know about WhatsApp compatibility with DumberOS right now. There are both good and bad news!

After extensive testing, we have verified that WhatsApp requires Play Integrity when signing into some accounts. You can not use the official WhatsApp client on Android phones not certified by Google when logging in. This seems to be quite rare and most accounts work totally fine, but we don't know the percentage of flagged accounts or why they get flagged. It's possible that a clear account will get flagged in the future, and this will prevent future sign-ins on DumberOS. From what we know, this won't get you signed out, and you can keep using WhatsApp as long as you don't sign out.

If you have preordered a Dumber Mini or are thinking about getting a DumberOS-compatible phone, you can check whether WhatsApp will work for you using an Android Emulator. We recommend using the Bluestacks emulator (on Windows) or the official emulator in Android Studio. Here are the required steps:

  • Launch an Android emulator.

  • Sign into the Play Store, download WhatsApp.

  • Enter your phone number into WhatsApp, request a verification SMS.

  • Don't enter the verification code in the emulator. If you have received the SMS, then your account is good to sign in on DumberOS.

  • If instead of getting the SMS, you see the "Download official WhatsApp" error in the emulator, this means your account is not able to sign in on DumberOS.

You can also check this on any Android phone without Google Play Services, such as Mudita Kompakt, Sidephone, HMD Terra M, TTFone tt990, etc.

Once you know you have this issue, here are your options:

  • Use a different phone number - this is the easiest solution if you can do it.

  • Use our custom chat app called DumberChat. This is where we'd like to make a small announcement. Inspired by these issues with WhatsApp, we have created a custom client for the WhatsApp web API. This is the same solution that Beeper uses to integrate with WhatsApp, so you can set it up as a linked device, although you still need your main WhatsApp account to be logged in on another phone. Besides this limitation, DumberChat has call (and in the future video) support, so it's intended as a full replacement. It even has complete navigation with physical keys! You will find DumberChat in More Apps.

  • Use Beeper. This will let you text in WhatsApp, but not make calls.

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