How PandaChat Works, From First Tap to Follow

PandaChat pairs you with one person at a time for a call in your browser. You arrive as a guest, choose video, voice or text, and tap Start. Someone who’s online comes through; you talk, or you hang up and try again. People you liked can be followed and called back later.

This page goes in the order you’ll meet things, from the first screen to your Following list. If you’d rather just try it, the PandaChat home page has the Start button, and you can come back here when something puzzles you.

Open pandachat.cam in an up-to-date browser on a phone or a computer. There’s no sign-up page in the way: you’re a guest from the moment the page loads, and the Start a call button works straight away.

Nobody asks for your email, your phone number or a photo before your first call. If you plan to come back without typing the address each time, add the site to your home screen; the PandaChat app page has the taps for iPhone and Android.

Along the bottom of the match screen sit three modes. Video turns both cameras on. Voice is audio only, with no picture. Text matches you at random with someone to type to. The mode you pick applies to the next match, so you can change it between calls as your mood changes.

When you tap Start, the browser asks for permission to use the camera, the microphone or both, depending on the mode. Say yes. If you said no by accident, you can switch it back on in the browser’s site settings, usually behind the padlock or the small icon next to the address.

Once someone comes through, the call is yours to run. Stay while you’re both enjoying it; if a call is about to start using coins, the call screen tells you first. If it isn’t working, hang up and tap again for the next person. You don’t need a reason, and the other person can leave the same way.

A short call isn’t a failed one. Plenty of good calls last two minutes: a hello from someone in Manila waiting for a bus, a joke about the rain, then goodbye. The guide on how to call a stranger has a couple of kind ways to wrap one up.

To talk to someone again, follow them from their profile. Later, open that profile from your Following list and press the video button: it rings that person only, not a random match. The profile has one call button, and it’s video.

If they’re not around, send a message from the same profile and see whether they reply. That’s how a random call turns into someone you know a little. The full list of PandaChat features shows what else sits on a profile.

It’s the list of people on PandaChat right now, and it lets you pick who to talk to instead of leaving it to chance: open a profile, then follow, message or ring that person. When it beats a random match, and how to use its views, is covered in random video chat with girls.

In Live you join a room where one person is on camera while others watch and chat along; you can’t start a room yourself. It sits in the video feed next to tabs like Following and Hot, and whether it shows depends on the site’s settings at the time.

A one-on-one call is just the two of you; a Live room is one person on camera for many viewers, with a button that turns it into a private call.

Coins come in once the free matches you start with, plus any you pick up from rewards, are used up. From then on, matching uses coins from your wallet, and a call that runs past its free part can use them too. Gifts in Live rooms are paid with coins as well.

There’s an optional VIP membership as well. What’s free, what isn’t and why we only say “free to start” is set out under is PandaChat free.

Messages live in your message list, which collects the conversations you’ve started from someone’s profile and the ones people have started with you. Your own profile is what other people open when they tap your card, and it’s where they can follow you, message you or ring you back.

A message is the gentle way to pick a conversation back up. “Did the dog ever settle down?” lands better than a cold call out of nowhere. Blocking and reporting live on profiles too, and what to do when a call goes wrong walks through both.