Pixel 8a might miss out on Android 15’s audio sharing feature
Google might not enable Auracast on the Pixel 8a or older Pixels.
JoriPress
- Code within the Android Open Source Project suggests that Android 15’s upcoming audio sharing feature won’t be available on the Pixel 8a or older Pixel devices.
- Audio sharing is a feature that lets you broadcast your phone’s audio to nearby devices that support Bluetooth LE Audio.
- While the Pixel 8a and even Pixel 7 series do support Bluetooth LE Audio, Google doesn’t seem to have plans to enable the requisite broadcasting roles.
If you want to privately share whatever you’re listening to with your nearby friends or family members, you typically need either a complicated wiring setup with splitters or everyone to have the same brand of device. That’s because most mobile devices and wireless headsets that support Bluetooth don’t also support the standard’s LE Audio broadcasting feature, which standardizes how devices broadcast audio to one or more nearby devices over Bluetooth Low Energy.
While the best Android phones on the market already support LE Audio and are theoretically capable of supporting its broadcasting feature, it’s possible that not every LE Audio-capable device will gain broadcast support. Take, for example, Google’s Pixel 8a and Pixel 7 series. While these devices do support LE Audio unicasts — sending audio over Bluetooth LE to a single headset — they’re poised to miss out on LE Audio broadcast support, according to an Android Authority analysis.
