Why WhatsApp calls need a different kind of translator
WhatsApp is where families call across borders, freelancers close clients in another country, and support agents pick up from a customer who doesn't share their language. These calls are spontaneous — nobody schedules a WhatsApp call a day in advance or invites a human interpreter to join. By the time you'd set one up, the call is already over.
VoxisLive works differently: it sits on your Windows PC and listens to the audio your speakers are already playing. There's no bot to invite, no third-party number to add to the chat, and nothing for the person on the other end to notice — the call looks and behaves exactly like a normal WhatsApp call.
Two ways to use VoxisLive on a WhatsApp call
Which one you need depends on whether you only want to understand the other person, or want to reply in their language too.
Just listen (simplest, no extra setup). Start VoxisLive in Video & Game mode before or during your call. It captures your system audio directly — including WhatsApp Desktop or WhatsApp Web running in your browser — and speaks the translation back through your speakers or headphones as the other person talks. Nothing to configure in WhatsApp itself.
Speak back too (two-way conversation). Start VoxisLive in Meeting mode. Incoming speech is translated into your language through your speakers, exactly as above — but your own replies are also translated and sent into the call as your WhatsApp microphone, through a small free virtual audio cable. Both sides speak naturally, no pausing for a translator. The illustrated setup is below.
Illustrated setup: two-way WhatsApp translation
This takes under five minutes and only needs doing once — after the initial setup, every future WhatsApp call just needs Meeting mode started.
Install VB-CABLE (free, one-time)
VB-CABLE is a small free virtual audio driver from VB-Audio that creates a "cable" Windows can send audio through — it's what lets VoxisLive hand your translated voice to WhatsApp as if it were a microphone. Download it from vb-audio.com/Cable, run the installer, and restart any app that uses audio (including WhatsApp). You only do this once, and it works for every call app, not just WhatsApp.
Open WhatsApp → Settings → Video & voice
In WhatsApp Desktop (or the WhatsApp Web app), open the gear icon in the sidebar for Settings, then choose Video & voice. This is where WhatsApp picks which camera, microphone and speakers your calls use.
Set Microphone to "CABLE Output"
Open the Microphone dropdown and select CABLE Output (VB-Audio Virtual Cable). This tells WhatsApp to treat VoxisLive's translated voice as your mic input, instead of your real one. You can switch it back to your headset mic any time you want to speak untranslated.
In VoxisLive, choose Meeting mode and start
Open VoxisLive, pick the Meeting scenario, set your language and the other person's language, then press Start. Now make (or answer) your WhatsApp call as usual — VoxisLive translates what you hear into your speakers, and translates what you say into the virtual cable WhatsApp is now using as its microphone.
Prefer your own Gemini key instead of the built-in one? The open-source BYOK build works the same way, under policies you set directly with Google. See how it works and pricing for details.