Whereby SDK & Product Updates August–October 2026

Over the last few months, we’ve focused on our Browser and Core SDKs. Many features you already know from the pre-built Whereby Embedded experience are now available to developers building their own interface using our SDKs.

That includes disabling incoming video on weak connections, YouTube and Miro integrations, call quality indicators, and host controls for screen sharing and the waiting room.

Here’s everything we shipped since our last update!

Pre-built features, now in the SDK

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If you build your own custom meeting UI with our Browser SDK or Core SDK, we’ve made some improvements to bring more features from our pre-built experience to your setup. The following features are now available in the SDK.

Audio-only mode (“Disable videos”)

Participants can pause all incoming video and carry on with audio, just like “Disable videos” in the pre-built experience. It only affects the person who turns it on. It also stays on through reconnects, and shared screens remain visible.

• Browser SDK: use toggleAudioOnlyMode from useRoomConnection.

• Core SDK: use subscribeToAudioOnlyMode on RoomConnectionClient.

• Pre-built embed: you can now control audio-only mode from your own code, with the toggleAudioOnlyMode() command and the audio_only_mode_status_change event on the embed element.

Read the docs

Call quality indicators

You can now show participants when a connection is struggling, as the prebuilt experience already does.

• Browser SDK: localParticipantQualityReport and remoteParticipantQualityReport in useRoomConnection state.

• Core SDK: subscribeToLocalParticipantQualityReport and subscribeToRemoteParticipantQualityReport on RoomConnectionClient.

Read the docs

YouTube and Miro integrations

Sharing a YouTube video or a Miro board in the room now works in SDK-powered custom experiences too.

• VideoGrid users: a running integration appears on the stage automatically. Use renderIntegration to render it yourself, or enableIntegrations={false} to keep it out of the grid.

• Custom UIs: use the useRoomIntegrationView and useRoomIntegrationPicker hooks.

Read the docs

Host screen share controls

Hosts can ask a participant to share their screen, or turn off a participant’s screen share. Your app can also see whether a screen share started successfully, and show a helpful message if it didn’t.

Read the docs

Waiting room messages

Hosts can put a waiting participant on hold or decline them, with an optional message, using these functions:

• holdWaitingParticipant(participantId, message?)

• rejectWaitingParticipant(participantId, message?)

The participant sees the message, and people on hold get a dedicated “on hold” status via knockResponse.

Read the docs

Breakout configuration

Breakout group configuration is now available in the SDK for group rooms, with a default end time for breakout sessions.

Read the docs

Reply to chat messages with a file

sendFiles now accepts a parentId, so files can be attached as a reply. It also accepts isBroadcast, which sends them to all breakout groups.

Read the docs

More control when building your own interface

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These changes are new for SDK builders:

• Join muted, with devices ready: the new initialMuteStates option lets people join with their camera and/or microphone off, while their devices stay ready to turn on. The new isCameraEnabled and isMicrophoneEnabled states make pre-call screens easier to build.

• Clearer reconnection status: connectionStatus now reads reconnecting while the SDK retries a dropped connection, and disconnected only once it has stopped retrying. A new room:rejoined event fires once the participant is back in the room. Read the docs

• More control over the video grid:

  • renderSubgridParticipant lets you customise tiles in the subgrid.

  • The newly exported useGridCell lets your custom tiles read and change maximise and float state.

  • On phones, the grid now matches the Whereby app: participants who aren’t presenting move to the subgrid during a presentation, and subgrid tiles are evenly sized squares.

  • Read the docs

Reminder: iOS SDK moves to Swift Package Manager this month

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As we announced in July, new iOS SDK releases are now published only through Swift Package Manager (SwiftPM). Existing versions on CocoaPods will keep working, but they won’t get further updates.

If you haven’t migrated yet, follow the SwiftPM steps in our iOS SDK repo.

SDK Changelog

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As always, we’ve made plenty of smaller improvements. Highlights include:

• smoother video at 30fps

• a fix so remote audio starts reliably on Safari 27 on iOS

• cameras and microphones now being released when a meeting ends

For a full list of changes and their commits, check out our SDK repo changelog.

Have a great week ,

Team Whereby.