Video chat on iPhone without the App Store

QDo I have to install anything on my iPhone?

No. This runs as a web page in Safari, Chrome or whichever browser you already use. There is nothing in the App Store to find, nothing to download, and no install prompt standing between arriving here and seeing someone.

That also means there is no separate iPhone build that can fall behind — you and someone on a desktop are on the same page, at the same version, at the same time.

QWill the camera actually work in Safari?

Yes. Safari has supported real-time camera and microphone access in the browser for years. When a video match connects, Safari shows you its own permission box, and once you allow it the call runs like any other.

Permission is asked at the moment a video match is connecting — not when the page loads. There is no reason to ask for your camera while you are still reading.

QWhy did it ask about my camera when I had already allowed it?

This one is genuinely specific to iPhone. Safari on iOS does not implement the browser interface that lets a page look up what your current permission state is. On other browsers we can check and skip ahead; on iPhone that check simply returns nothing usable.

So the page does the safe thing and explains why the camera is needed before asking. It is not an error and it is not the page forgetting you — it is the only behaviour available when the state cannot be read.

Cross-checked against our own implementation, not guessed.

QNothing happens when I press start. What now?

Almost always this is a camera permission that was refused earlier. Once a browser records a refusal it stops asking, so there is nothing left for the page to trigger.

On iPhone: Settings, then Safari, then Camera and Microphone, and set it to Ask or Allow. Reloading on its own will not undo a refusal — the setting has to change first.

QCan I use it without turning on a camera at all?

Yes. Video, voice and text are three separate queues rather than three settings on one. Start in voice or text and no camera is requested.

Whoever you are matched with chose the same queue, so nobody is put in front of a camera they did not plan to turn on.

QDoes it cost anything to try?

You start with free matches. Once those run out, video and voice draw on coins; the page shows you what is left before you spend anything.

We are not going to claim it is free forever — it is not. But you do not need to pay, sign up or install to find out whether you like it.