Do you remember sharing your earphones with a friend back in the day? Listening to music together on the bus or stealthily weaving the wires through your hoodie sleeves to listen together at school?
Maybe you had an audio splitter so that you could share your tunes without swapping ear wax with your friends, or you counted down from three and pressed play on a song at the same time, so it was like listening together.
I’ve done all of the above. I love music, and specifically, sharing music with loved ones. So when I heard about Android’s Audio Sharing feature, I was thrilled for several reasons.
You mean my gym buddy and I can vibe out together without disturbing anyone? And my partner and I can listen to music together while co-working in a café the same way we do at home? And I could host a silent disco with another tired parent at the park? Without sharing ear wax or being tethered by wires attached to a splitter?
Sold. Sign me up.
If only it had been that simple. When I set out to try Audio Sharing this week, I was met with no end of issues.
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Audio Sharing in a nutshell
Here are the details
Audio Sharing is meant to enable you to share any audio streaming from your device to two or more connected headphones via Bluetooth, rather than just one.
The catch is that you have to use Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) Audio compatible headphones to use Audio Sharing.
Bluetooth LE Audio is a new generation of Bluetooth audio that is built on low-energy radio. It offers better sound quality with less power drain, allows multi-stream audio for earbuds, reduces latency, and enables native support for modern hearing aids.
This all sounded lovely until I learned that there are surprisingly few LE Audio compatible headphones and earbuds out there right now.
And even the ones that are marked as LE Audio compatible, may not support all LE Audio features. Some only support LC3 (an updated software system that can compress audio signals for transmission and reception), others support Auracast, and others still support multi-stream.
So, even though both of the earbuds I used to test Audio Sharing claimed to be LE Audio compatible, it still didn’t work, and figuring out why was an absolute pain.
The testing process was a mess
If you can even call it testing
I tested Audio Sharing with one pair of Google Pixel Buds Pro 2, and one pair of EarFun Air Pro 4+ earbuds on a Google Pixel 10 and a Google Pixel 10 Pro. I checked, and both earbuds are allegedly LE audio compatible.
8.5/10
- Wired/wireless
-
Wireless
- Battery Life
-
8 hours with ANC (30 hours with case)
- Noise Cancellation
-
Yes, active
In spite of following the instructions on the Android Help page meticulously, I ran into issues pretty much immediately. To begin with, there was no “Share Audio” button where there was supposed to be in the Bluetooth Quick Settings menu.
This was an easy fix, I just had to press and hold the Bluetooth tab in Quick Settings. From there, I selected Connection Preferences, and that got me where I needed to go.
When I found the Audio Sharing toggle and switched it on, I got a notice instructing me to connect LE audio compatible headphones to start sharing audio.
Again, my Earfun AirPro 4+ earbuds are supposed to be compatible, so I opened my EarFun Audio app to do some poking around, and found that the LE audio toggle was actually off. I thought that would definitely fix the problem.
That was fast
Turning LE audio on did not fix the problem. I tried a couple other things before officially hitting a wall.
- Updating my phone: It’s always a good idea to make sure all your software is up-to-date before trying out any new features.
- Forgetting and reconnecting both pairs of earbuds: “Have you tried turning it off and back on?” Yes, yes I have. Multiple times.
- Trying the Pixel Pro Buds 2 as the primary audio device: If any pair of earbuds was going to work, it should have been those.
My partner, who is a lot more tech-savvy than I, is also stumped. There’s no obvious reason why Audio Sharing shouldn’t be working for us.
There was no error code, and no real explanation for what may have been the problem. Just that same pesky “Connect a compatible device” notice, which was entirely unhelpful.
Audio Sharing is great, but LE Audio support is confusing
I understand less than when I started
I did a lot of research in an attempt to get to the bottom of this issue. What I learned was that support for LE audio still seems to be quite limited, despite the initial rollout being six years ago.
Digitech Bytes has a list with a good range of Bluetooth LE Audio earbuds, but generally, there’s no definitive, authoritative list of devices that are guaranteed to work.
There’s also no simple way to check whether your headphones or earbuds are LE Audio compatible. You’ll likely have to dig through the manufacturer’s official specifications, checking for specific terms.
Then there’s the issue of device compatibility, which also seems arbitrary and complicated to determine.
This is just too much work
I’m not the most tech-savvy, but I can hold my own most of the time. Still, Audio Sharing inexplicably didn’t work for me. Unfortunately, the information surrounding its technology and how it works is incredibly dense and inaccessible for the (very) average Android user like me.
No one wants to do this much work for one feature. It would have been faster to just pick a song, count down from three, and press play at the same time. It’s a shame, because I think Audio Sharing is a very exciting feature.
Hopefully, support for LE Audio becomes a bit less confusing in future updates, and we can all vibe out at the gym together in due time.
