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Adaptive Sound & More Might Be Coming To Your Pixel Speakers

Adaptive Sound & More Might Be Coming To Your Pixel Speakers

By Daniel Golightly
December 02, 2020

A popular feature on Google’s Pixel Buds — namely, Adaptive Sound — may be making its way to Pixel phones in the near future. That’s if a recent tweet from XDA Developers Mishaal Rahman and subsequent reports are any indication.

Keep in mind that this hasn’t been confirmed by Google yet. But it seems highly likely that this is a feature that will be added in the future.

What would this mean for the sound quality on Pixel phones?

Now, Adaptive Sound is, based on the screenshot shared in the tweet embedded below, exactly what its branding implies. Like the second-generation Google Pixel Buds, the feature would automatically adjust the equalizer for the on-device speakers. On those headphones, the feature adjusts more than just the EQ too.

In fact, on Pixel Buds, the Adaptive Sound automatically adjusts the volume for the environment too. So, when users are on a busy street or in another noisy location, the volume automatically upticks. And that’s for sustained noisy environments. So it won’t automatically adjust if there’s a single loud noise.

With that said, the Adaptive Sound feature for Pixel phones would primarily affect the equalizer. In effect, the speakers would be re-tuned to offer the best experience based on ambient noise. There’s no mention of volume adjustments in the screenshot.

Is this just for Pixel 5, or is this coming to other devices too?

It is not immediately clear whether or not this would come to older devices. Or even to recently launched Pixel handsets such as the Pixel 4, Pixel 4a, or Pixel 4a 5G. At least one other Twitter user notes that the feature was listed on Amazon when the Google Pixel 5 first went on sale. So, at the very least, it seems likely the feature will make its way to the Pixel 5. Although it may be the case that only future Pixel devices will receive the feature.