Google announced a major update to its Pixel Buds headphones today. Updates include new ways to personalise your audio and a handy new transcribe mode.
Pixel Buds users can now customise their audio experience with bass boost and sharing detection. Bass boost allows you to enhance the bass directly in their Pixel Buds settings. Meanwhile, sharing detection can automatically sense when you’re listening to music or watching a movie with another person, allowing you each to control the volume of your buds with a swipe.
Fans of the Google earbuds will also be able to take advantage of transcribe mode from today.
This feature builds upon the headphones’ conversation mode by translating longer lines of another person’s speech, so you can understand what’s being said. Right now transcribe mode can translate English into French, German, Italian and Spanish, and works best in quiet environments with just one person speaking at a time.
Other new updates include Attention Alerts – a feature that temporarily lowers the volume of your Buds to make you aware of dogs barking, babies crying and emergency vehicles driving by – and a new tool in Find My Device that allows you to see your Pixel Buds last known location on a map when you lose or misplace them.
Related: Best wireless earbuds
Google Assistant is also getting new voice commands. If you’re prone to accidentally hitting your touch controls, you can now ask Google to switch them off. You can also now say the phrase “Hey Google, how much battery life do I have left on my earbuds?” to find out how much battery you have left.
Google released the Pixel Buds 2 earlier this year. We enjoyed the earbuds when we tested them out, awarding them four stars and hailing them a huge improvement over Google’s last true wireless.
The new Google Pixel Buds features begin rolling out today.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
