Google Meet will now tell you if you’re the one causing the echo

Tired of trying to figure out where that mysterious echo is coming from in your video calls? Google Meet will now tell you if you’re the cause of the feedback. 

Echo takes place when the sound from your device feeds back audio into the call through your microphone. 

“Most of the time, Meet will intelligently control the audio to remove the echo”, explained Google in its Workspace Updates blog. 

“However, sometimes it still happens, and causes others to hear an echo from your device when they speak. Until now, it has been difficult for you to know when your device is causing an echo. Now, we will notify you when we detect a notable echo from your system which may be heard by other call participants with a red dot on the more options button, along with a text notification”. 

You can see a preview of what the notification will look like in the image above, but essentially it’s a little black speech bubble that says “You’re causing echo” above the three dot options button at the bottom of the screen. 

Of course, knowing you’re the cause of the echo won’t automatically fix the issue. Muting your microphone is one common solution, but it isn’t much good if you’re in the middle of a presentation or trying to partake in a conversation. 

Thankfully, Google has some options. 

If you click on the notification, you’ll be taken to Google’s Help Center, which will explain the issue and what you can do to get around it. 

Google’s recommendations include using headphones in your call, lowering your speaker’s volume and making sure to mute your microphone whenever you aren’t speaking. 

The echo notification feature started rolling out to all Google Workspace, G Suite Basic and G Suite Business users on August 23, so you might see the feature pop up in your next call.