Google details new AirPods-style Bluetooth upgrades for Android - Ars Technica

• The existing Fast Pair system. Just pop open your headphone case and you'll get a pairing notification.

  Google

• The Bluetooth screen can show detailed information about your headphones, like pictures, settings, and battery info for the case.

  Google

• Find My Device will let you ring your headphones.

  Google

Google finally started shipping the second-generation Pixel Buds, and with them came a slew of new features for Android's Bluetooth stack.

The 2nd-gen Pixel Buds are Google's first truly wireless headphones, and they are finally on sale for $179 in the US. They were announced a whopping six months ago at Google's annual hardware event, alongside the Pixel 4, Pixelbook Go, and Nest Wi-Fi. They have an always-on Google Assistant, a charging case, and no active noise cancellation.

Fine, fine. What's far more interesting are the new Bluetooth features Google is enabling for all Android phones running Android 6.0 and up. These are all quality-of-life features that copy existing Apple Airpods features, but Google is partnering with other headphone manufacturers, too, bringing better Bluetooth to the wider ecosystem. The first company to take Google up on the offer is Harman Kardon (a division of Samsung Electronics) for the Harman Kardon Fly.

First, the headphones will appear in Google's "Find My Device" app, and you'll be able to easily locate them with the same features that exist for phones. You'll be able to make the headphones ring so you can locate them nearby, or, for farther away searches, you'll soon be able to view their last known location on a map. Google specifically mentions this being for "the app," but hopefully the headphones will show up on the Find My Device webpage, too.

You'll also get some real-time phone notifications for your headphones, which can pop up as soon as you turn on the headphones. First there's "Fast Pair," which launched in 2017. This will spawn a "tap here to pair" notification on any nearby devices, saving you from having to dig through the Bluetooth settings. For wireless earbuds, you'll also be able to see the battery level of not only the headphones, but also the charging case, right in the OS. If the charging case has a low battery, you'll even get a notification about it.

The new system also supports automatic renaming of Bluetooth devices. So after you first set up up your headphones, they'll be renamed to "[Your name]'s Pixel Buds" so you'll easily be able to see who owns them.

There isn't really a great branding for third parties making these Google-enhanced Bluetooth headphones. Google seems to be calling the entire suite of features "Fast Pair" after the feature that launched in 2017, but now they support more features than just Fast Pair. It's also not clear how consumers will be able to tell the difference between devices that support the existing Fast Pair functionality and which headphones support all the new functionality detailed in this post. Google only says "Harman Kardon Fly and the new Google Pixel Buds will be the first true wireless earbuds to enjoy all of these new features, with many others to come. We’ll continue to work with our partners to bring Fast Pair to more headset models."

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April 29, 2020 at 06:40PM
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Google details new AirPods-style Bluetooth upgrades for Android - Ars Technica
"Android" - Google News
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