Introducing Sendbird calls: APIs for voice and video
We’re very pleased to be launching Sendbird Calls Voice API and Sendbird Calls Video API, the fastest way to integrate high-quality 1:1 voice and video calls inside your application.
Getting Started
- Sign up on the Sendbird Dashboard
- Download the quickstart app from Google Play or the Apple App Store
- Read the documentation
- How to make your first What are push notifications? call within 15 minutes:
On the Sendbird Dashboard, create a new calls-enabled application:
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In the “Calls” menu, go into the “Studio” and create a new “phonebooth” user:
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Download the ready-made mobile quickstart app and create a mobile user for it to sign in as via a QR code:
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Make your first call to your mobile device from the phonebooth:
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Review the call details in the call logs:
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Now you are ready to start building yourself.
- Examine the open-source quickstart application code on Github
- Download the SDK from the Github repo
- Check our documentation, and make your project take flight!
We designed Sendbird Calls to work for you—as fast as possible.
Why in-app Calls?
Beyond the engaging ways that chat has developed in the last 10 years, voice and video offer human presence, genuine emotion, and connection rivaled only by in-person interactions. Yet, in-app voice and video communication, like in-app chat, poses a significant technical challenge to development teams building a solution. High uptime, low latency server infrastructure, security, multi-platform support—all these aspects contribute to why companies seek vendors for user experiences and why we chose to meet our customers’ voice and video in-app calling needs.
Given our expertise in building a highly scalable and reliable chat infrastructure for some of the largest brands in the world, it’s a natural progression for us to deliver voice and video as part of the broader Sendbird interaction platform. Similar to chat, we deliver the power of these new capabilities via a simple-to-use API with straightforward pay-as-you-go plans, eliminating the need for a massive development and server investment on the part of our customers. In fact, we believe Sendbird Calls customers can get up and running with their first call in as little as fifteen minutes.
Voice and video interactions drive increased transactions across industries
Sendbird Calls enables the creation of a real-time, immersive, and personal interaction between two users. Whether your app offers users professional services, customer support, health & wellness care, dating or concierge services, a voice or video call adds a personal touch to high-value interactions.
In-app voice and video calls are perfect for:
- Marketplace apps
- Create interactions between buyer and sellers that bring products to life, or ensure that users coordinate exchanges without going off app
- On-demand delivery & ride-sharing
- In-app voice calls can be critical for resolving time-sensitive disruptions to any transaction as well as provide hands-free communication for drivers
- Healthcare providers
- Whether you’re doing telemedicine or tele-mental wellness, your experts can connect, be present, and communicate with patients in a medium that feels personal and supportive, and creates better patient outcomes and satisfaction
- Healthcare benefits & administration
- Communicate with users about often complicated and deeply personal issues related to healthcare benefits
- Tele-professional services
- If you offer financial, legal, accounting, tutoring or other professional services, you can deliver rich interactions from within your app or website
- Concierge or Customer Support
- Offer satisfying voice or video interactions for high-value concierge services and customer support, so you can resolve calls quickly and personally, and keep call logs associated with the customer account
- Dating
- Go beyond chatting by offering date seekers the ability to spent time with each other over an in-app call, while keeping their actual phone numbers private
Bringing voice and video calls to your app
Sendbird Calls offers immersive 1:1 audio and video within the context of your app and user experience.
Voice and Video in the context of your user experience
No communication is initiated out of context. Rich voice and video interactions are only a click or a tap away when a user wants to buy a product within a marketplace, seek help from an expert, or connect with another person on a dating app.
With Sendbird Calls integrated into your app, you can embed any custom data into the call metadata to create a contextual experience for your users. So, for example, when a potential renter looks at five rental listings from a single agent and then calls them, in-app metadata can tell the agent exactly which rental listing the potential renter is calling about, right on the incoming call notification, and later in the call logs.. This level of custom metadata integration can deliver personalized and seamless communication directly to your users in ways that will give them a wow experience.
Multi-device support
App users are constantly on the move—from working at the office or traveling between meetings, to entering their car and arriving at home. A user may have different devices in all these places, so it’s crucial for voice and video communication to support multiple devices per user. Out of the box, Sendbird Calls supports unlimited simultaneously logged-in devices per user.
Beyond multiple devices, Sendbird Calls works on iOS, Android, and JavaScript, and supports making calls between devices running any of these platforms.
Security
We hold Sendbird Calls’ security, privacy, and confidentiality to the same high standards as in our chat product.
Understanding user behavior with insights directly on the dashboard
Immediately at launch, you can manage Sendbird Calls directly from the Sendbird Dashboard and gain crucial insight about your customers’ communication journey.
Dashboard call logs include:
- Individual call details
- Relevant call metadata
- Tag and categorize calls
Dashboard app and user administration features include:
- Configure your Sendbird account details
- Administer users authorized to make calls on your application
- Manage call log access permissions
Immersive voice and video in minutes not hours or days
Along with Sendbird Chat, the industry-leading chat API, Sendbird Calls Voice API and Sendbird Calls Video API provide a broad interaction API platform that allows product teams to build interactive experiences that drive rich engagement, increased transactions, and memorable user experiences. In 15 minutes, make your first call and build something great.
