rcs messages

TL;DR

  • The RCS standard has announced support for native video calls in chats.
  • Earlier this year, Google Messages made its first reference to supporting RCS video calls.
  • The feature still isn’t live, but new evidence reveals that Google has been making further progress.

The arrival of RCS has already proven huge for Google Messages, helping to modernize the features Android users expect from their text messaging, all while helping to level the playing field with iOS. RCS is far from a one-trick pony, and even now that it’s here, we’re always on the lookout for the arrival of the latest RCS upgrades. One that’s been on our radar recently has been support for RCS video calls, and this week we’re spotting some new progress in Messages.

Even though Messages supports video calls already — whether through Google Meet or carrier-based ViLTE — earlier this year we learned that RCS Universal Profile 4.0 was going to introduce its own video functionality, letting users start calls directly from within chats.

Back in May, we identified what looked like some very early groundwork towards implementing RCS video call support in Messages. At the time, there was only a single text string to go on, but in the app’s new messages.android_20260924_00_RC00.phone.openbeta_dynamic release, a whole lot more supporting evidence has surfaced.

New UI Strings Point to Call Confirmation Screens

Little by little, Google appears to be assembling the UI needed to connect through RCS video calls. The following strings look to be part of the confirmation screens users will see when initiating a call:

<string name="rcs_video_bottom_sheet_call_button_text">Call</string>
<string name="rcs_video_bottom_sheet_cancel_button_text">Cancel</string>
<string name="rcs_video_bottom_sheet_heading">Call?</string>
<string name="rcs_video_bottom_sheet_heading_with_name">Call %1$s?</string>

While the strings themselves are fairly simple, the labels accompanying them confirm a connection to RCS video support.

Internal Checks and Function Names Add Further Evidence

Beyond those UI strings, additional new references have appeared in the form of internal checks, function names, and included files:

Ignoring RCS video call request: no RcsVideoController is bound.
Ignoring RCS video call request: recipients are not reachable over RCS video.
launchRcsVideoCall$<anonymous>
RcsVideoCapabilityCheckerImpl.kt

Even with all these new findings, there’s still no proper RCS video call interface to show, and nothing much beyond continued confirmation that Google is actively working on the feature. For something so visual in nature, that’s a little disappointing — but further digging into new releases may yet turn up something more substantial.

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