20 Photos Proving Video Calls Are Way Older Than You Think

Author image for John Summers
John Summers • Contributor
Aug 15, 2025 10:00 PM EDT

Long before Zoom meetings, FaceTime calls, and that awkward moment when you realize you've been on mute for 10 minutes, video calls were already a thing. Yep - decades before we started using them to show our coworkers our cats, people were experimenting with ways to see and talk to someone miles away in real time.

These 20 vintage photos prove it. From bulky, two-way TV rigs in 1930s Germany to NASA space links in the 60s to the clunky desktop setups of the 80s that cost more than a car, the dream of face-to-face calls has been around for well over a century. The first concepts date back to the 1870s, when inventors on both sides of the Atlantic were already imagining "picture telephones" - even though the tech wouldn't catch up for decades.

Some of these early designs look sleek and futuristic. Others… look like a prop from a low-budget sci-fi movie. But every single one shows just how long we've been chasing the idea of being able to see the person on the other end of the line.

Turns out, video calls aren't a product of the 21st century - we just finally made them cheap, fast, and cat-filter compatible.

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    A logical extension of today's telephone service... Bell System introduces PICTUREPHONE service Both ends of telephone conversations are pictured; people phone by appointment from family-type booths in attended centers. New York (Grand Central Station), Chicago (Prudential Building), Washington (National Geographic Society Building) have service. Bell System PICTUREPHONE service now lets callers are as well as talk on the telephone. And "hands-free" if they wish. For the first time, people can m
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    Videotelephony predicted to be in use by 2000, as envisioned in 1910 (artist’s conception).

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    VIDIOPHONE The telephone of the future way well bevidge that ble suster to see each other wille talking btw it won't persit the kind of magic esp Western Electric's Kares Clifford singly lake into the past and chate with Destin Patrovics, representing lady of 17. PTO D-254 WESTERN ALECTRIC NEWS FEATURES OCTOBER 1965
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    Western Electric is crossing a telephone with a TVset. C Someday you'll be a star! What you'll use is called, sim- ply enough, a Picturephone set. Someday it will let you see who you are talking to, and let them see you. The Picturephone set is just one of the communications of the future Western Electric is working on with Bell Telephone Laboratories. Western Electric builds regu- lar phones and equipment for your Bell telephone company. But we also build for the future. Western Electric MANUFA
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