Gadget Weekly
Join Namerah Saud Fatmi as she explores the cool, weird, and sometimes downright weird world of smartphone accessories, gadgets, and other nerdy toys.
Android 15 is coming to an Android phone near you, and while Google continues to release early builds to developers, the latest Android 15 preview brings a promising feature to music lovers like me. It looks like Bluetooth audio sharing across devices may be available natively once the new platform update rolls out, which I’m very excited about.
Listening to music on a Bluetooth speaker is a pleasure, but it’s not always ideal. Sometimes, you and your friend or partner may want to listen to the same audio, but still need some privacy. Before the emergence of TWS Bluetooth headsets, such scenarios usually required sharing a pair of wired headsets or using an AUX splitter.
Unfortunately, the 3.5mm audio port is seriously under threat at this time. This means watching the same movie or YouTube video with someone on your phone or tablet requires you to use the device’s speakers or provide each person with a wireless headset. This is simply not possible if you are wearing over-ear headphones.
I don’t know about you, but I find this annoying time and time again. Every once in a while, my husband and I will argue about who should wear which headphones while watching something or listening to music. This usually happens when we travel.
Samsung came up with an ingenious solution for this many years ago. This feature is called dual audio and is available on most brands of cell phones. You can connect two audio devices to your phone via Bluetooth and stream the same audio to both devices at the same time. This can be headphones, earbuds, or speakers, as long as your Samsung phone and audio device have Bluetooth 5.0 or higher. While there’s a two-device limitation, it’s still a great way to watch or listen to content with someone.
Non-Samsung Android phones do not have this feature. This got me thinking and I found it strange that they didn’t do this since multipoint connectivity has been around for several years. Now that you can already connect multiple devices to one phone simultaneously via Bluetooth, why not add the ability to push audio playback simultaneously?
I was curious, so I did some digging. It turns out things are a little more complicated than that. Multipoint revolves around the ability to receive audio from multiple sources. Being able to connect and output to multiple devices simultaneously requires different technical specifications, which may explain why only Samsung phones have dual audio. Exact working details are still vague, and I’ve reached out to Samsung for more details on how the company will run dual audio on its devices, but I didn’t hear back in time for publication. However, I will update this article once more information becomes available. However, it’s clear that compatibility comes into play here.
Samsung’s Dual Audio is an algorithm optimization that enables Bluetooth 5.0 and higher devices to stream audio output to two devices simultaneously. While it’s been around since the Galaxy S8 era, starting with the Galaxy S21 series, Samsung has improved the feature and highlighted it more.
Samsung isn’t the only company with this feature, though. Apple phones have similar audio sharing capabilities, and like Samsung, the device must support Bluetooth 5.0 or higher. iPhone can share audio to multiple audio devices via Bluetooth.
Now, it looks like more Android users will be able to share their phone’s audio playback to multiple devices, as spotted in the Android 15 developer preview. While the feature isn’t working in preview at the time of writing, it does show the option to share audio with “everyone,” which further leads us to believe there might be more than just a two-device limit, which is pretty exciting .
Based on everything shown, I assume the feature is based on Bluetooth Auracast technology. Auracast was formerly known as Audio Share, but it recently got a revamp.
The Bluetooth SIG launched a new and improved version of the feature in June 2022, but we didn’t see any devices equipped with the feature launch until recently, again thanks to Samsung and One UI 6.1, which recently rolled out on some Galaxy flagships. Auracast was also demonstrated at CES 2024, and several Samsung devices, including the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro, were subsequently updated to support it.
The best part about Bluetooth Auracast is that it has no device limitations; you can use it to broadcast audio output to any number of devices. Since it requires Bluetooth LE Audio and Bluetooth 5.2 to work, it’s safe to assume it won’t use as much power as classic Bluetooth.
As the expected July release of Android 15 gets closer, my hopes are getting higher. Google often cherry-picks Samsung’s most popular features and incorporates them into Android. Quick Share is one such example, and audio sharing via Bluetooth could be the next to follow.
I wish Google would popularize this feature and bring it to all Android users. The audio sharing feature would be even more useful and versatile if it were indeed powered by Bluetooth Auracast.
All the signs are there; I just hope it goes as seamlessly as I had in my head. This could drastically change the way we use wireless audio devices, so it would be a shame if incompatibility or other issues held it back.