What is presence in WhatsApp?

In more depth

Presence is a courtesy signal that turns out to be an anti-ban tool. A bot that replies in eighty milliseconds behaves like nothing human, and WhatsApp's abuse systems notice. Emitting a typing indicator for a length of time proportional to the reply, then sending, produces a rhythm that looks like a person and gives the recipient a beat to expect the answer. Wapito can do this automatically, deriving the delay from the length of the message and capping it so nobody waits absurdly long. Reading presence is the mirror image: you subscribe to a chat and receive events when the other party comes online or starts typing. Treat what you read as a hint rather than a fact - many people disable last-seen entirely, several platforms report it inconsistently, and a phone with a poor connection can appear offline while actively typing. Never build a business rule such as a timeout or an escalation on presence alone; use it to decorate a human-facing interface.

In the Wapito API

On the wire it is the field typing_time:

{
  "to": "441234567890",
  "body": "On it",
  "typing_time": 4
}

On the official Cloud API

The Cloud API exposes no presence at all: a business cannot see whether a customer is online or typing, and cannot show a typing indicator of its own.

Wapito is an independent product. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by or certified by WhatsApp or Meta Platforms, Inc. WhatsApp is a trademark of Meta Platforms, Inc.

Related terms

• ACK
• Warm-up
• Webhook

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