In February 2021, Google announced a new very low- bitrate codec for speech compression called ' Lyra' that could operate with network speeds as low as 3kbps that avoided robotic voice audio and that was to be rolled out to Duo. For packet loss concealment, Duo used WaveNetEQ. Optimization was further achieved through the degradation of video quality through monitoring network quality. Google Duo was optimized for low- bandwidth mobile networks through WebRTC and uses QUIC over UDP. Google had said the Duo web app would redirected to the Google Meet web app, but as of April 2023, video calling and meetings are still separate on the web at and. The merger began in August, with the Duo mobile app renamed to Meet and the original Meet app renamed 'Meet Original' and scheduled to be phased out. In June 2022, Google reversed course and announced that Duo and Meet would, in fact, be merged.

In December 2021 this objective had been dropped, but Duo continued to be available and updated.

In August 2020, it was reported that Google was planning to eventually merge Google Duo with the business-oriented Google Meet. In December 2016, Google Duo replaced Hangouts within the suite of Google apps device manufacturers must install in order to gain access to the Google Play Store, with Hangouts instead becoming optional. Google announced in 2022 that the service would be merged into Google Meet, and it was shut down by the end of the year. Google Duo was announced at Google's developer conference on May 18, 2016, and began its worldwide release on August 16, 2016.

Duo could be used either with a phone number or a Google account, allowing users to call someone from their contact list. It let users make and receive one-to-one and group audio and video calls with other Duo users in high definition, using end-to-end encryption by default. Google Duo was a proprietary voice over IP (VoIP) and videotelephony service developed by Google, available for Android, iOS and web browsers.

Google duo download