At least one Google employee has now reportedly confirmed that the Bluetooth and connectivity issues with Google Pixel Buds will get a fix soon. The unnamed Googler says that the fix will “start rolling out in the coming weeks.”
That will, of course, arrive via a software update. That means users will need to have some form of data connection to get in on the fix. They’ll also need their Pixel Buds connected to their smartphone via Bluetooth.
What exactly is Google going to fix for Pixel Buds?
The exact nature of the update and what it is going to fix have not been well-defined. And whatever that entails, it won’t necessarily arrive in a single go. Instead, the Googler in question indicates that users may see multiple updates. The source also notes that improvements will be applied to both Bluetooth stability and connectivity.
The inexact timeline and the fairly limited details likely stem from the Googler’s desire to remain anonymous. But exactly what this fix for the Google Pixel Buds applies to is much less unambiguous.
That’s because the true wireless earbuds in question have been plagued with problems since the very start. Among the most common issues reported with the wearable listening device, users have reported that audio cuts out. But they’ve also pointed to general connectivity and Bluetooth issues.
Most recently, Google itself reached out to users with a survey thought to be intended to determine the precise nature of the problems. That survey started out with fairly mundane questions but, at around 10 to 15-minutes long, also asked about the Pixel Buds.
In particular, it asked questions pertaining to which smartphone is being used to connect to the buds. And how often the buds are being used. More pertinently, Google also asked directly about any issues users are having.
The news from the anonymous employee seems to confirm that it has, at the very least, narrowed down the problem. If the source is accurate, that seems to be a software issue with the device rather than a hardware problem.
These are too expensive for Google to ignore the problem
Now, it’s undoubtedly going to come as good news that the problems with Google Pixel Buds aren’t hardware related. That would effectively force users to trade in their headphones for a new, improved version. But Google hasn’t ever been the greatest at making that kind of process an efficient one. Put simply, it does far better with software updates.
The ‘weeks’-long timeframe here isn’t an ideal solution either. But that gives Google ample time to initiate internal updates and test the new firmware.
Regardless of the underlying cause and how long the fix will take to roll out, that the Pixel Buds had problems, to begin with, is hardly surprising. The track record for Google’s hardware department has been fraught with similar issues. In some cases, those have taken well into the life of those devices to be fixed.
This is one problem, however, that Google simply couldn’t ignore for long. The Google Pixel Buds launched back in April, and they cost right around $180 to purchase. The device undeniably competes well with just about every other similar gadget on the market on the audio quality front. But lingering connection drops are not something that any avid audio fanatic wants to put up with.