Phone calls might feel like a thing of the past these days, with messaging, video chats, and social media making up for the bulk of our mobile communication. Your smartphone is, of course, still a phone, and excellent voice quality remains as essential as ever if you’re taking meetings on the go. Spotted alongside today’s Android 13 QPR1 Beta, Google is developing a feature for its mobile OS that might give voice calls a much-needed quality boost.
As spotted by Mishaal Rahman on Twitter, Clear Calling is in the works for a future version of Android, and it could make a big difference the next time you need to place a call in a busy area. According to Rahman, Clear Calling is meant to reduce background noises while you’re on the phone, something plenty of premium Bluetooth earbuds already handle. It’s unclear precisely what processing Google intends to implement here, but it won’t involve the call itself being filtered through the company. Although it’s meant to work on “most mobile networks,” unfortunately, Wi-Fi calling is excluded.
On paper, it sounds a lot like some of the work Google’s done with noise cancellation in Meet, working to limit background distractions like screaming children or busy crowds. While many of us now rely on VoIP services for voice calls, it could be a handy tool in making traditional phone conversations sound much less noisy.
You can enable Clear Calling right now with some simple ADB commands, all without root. Once it’s active, the toggle is available under the Sound & vibrations settings menu. That said, it doesn’t seem to work, as at least one user could not get it to stick. We’ll have to wait for ourselves to see — or hear — exactly how well it works.
