Last week, Google Duo started rolling out a long-awaited feature that let others reach you over your email address, which meant you didn't have to share your phone number with anyone you wanted to video call. When we covered the news, we tried setting up Duo from scratch using only an email address, but discovered we still needed a phone number for the first sign-up. It turns out there's a nuance: you do need a phone number on phones, but not on tablets.

If you install Duo on a tablet now and open it, you'll notice the screenshot above, which asks for approval to use your email address to sign in. After that, the app lets you select the email address you prefer and then requests access to your contact list, camera, and microphone — all three are necessary for it to function properly.

Unlike phones, you don't get redirected to a screen where you have to input a phone number for verification, and Duo is perfectly happy with only an email address associated with the account, as shown in the screenshot below.

Our tipster told us that this worked well for them with a child account, but we don't have access to a Family Link-managed tablet to try verify that. Technically, though, it should work.

The change went live in v87 of Duo, but you can grab a more recent release, v89, from the Play Store or APK Mirror to give it a try.

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Thanks: realtestman