- The new Google Pixel Buds Pro 2 support Auracast, which is the marketing name for Bluetooth LE Audio broadcasts.
- This means the Pixel Buds Pro 2 can listen in on Auracast streams started by other Bluetooth devices.
- However, Google hasn’t enabled the Auracast feature yet on any of its Pixel phones.
The Google Pixel Buds Pro 2 are a significant upgrade over the original Pixel Buds Pro in terms of comfort and battery life, but they also brings some new features not seen in they’re predecessors, like Gemini Live and Find My Device integration. According to Google’s spec sheet, another new feature the Pixel Buds Pro 2 have over the originals is support for LE Audio, which got me thinking: Do the Pixel Buds Pro 2 support Auracast? I can now confirm that yes, Google’s latest Pixel Buds do, in fact, support Auracast, and I even managed to try it out with my own earbuds.
If you aren’t aware, Auracast is a feature that’s built on top of the Bluetooth LE Audio standard. It was made to fix one of the biggest problems with streaming audio over Bluetooth: the inability to stream audio to multiple Bluetooth devices. Most Bluetooth devices can only transmit audio to a single other device, which is a limitation of the core Bluetooth Classic Audio specification. To get around this limitation, some manufacturers like Samsung and Apple deploy custom Bluetooth stacks that let their phones share audio to multiple devices. The problem with this approach is that it only works if everyone has a phone or headset from the same manufacturer.