Android will soon give you more battery level info for your wireless earbuds

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Android will soon give you more control over your wireless earbuds

By Cam Bunton

Published Jul 22, 2019

Android is update its Fast Pair technology to offer more detail and control for your wireless earphones.

Google is updating its Fast Pair technology within Android to make it more useful, by giving more battery level information for true wireless earphones and by giving you more control over the audio.

Fast Pair first launched as a technology which - unsurprisingly - made it much quicker to pair with a set of Bluetooth earphones.

In essence, it's a lot like the pairing process for the AirPods on iPhone. You get a popup window on the screen when a nearby pair of headphones is available to connect to.

With the latest update, it's giving you the same kind of level of battery info as AirPods on the iPhone too.

For compatible truly wireless earphones, you won't get a generalised battery level for the earphones show up in the drop-down settings shade, but rather a battery level for each individual earphone as well as the charging case.

Like AirPods, these will show up when you open the case of the compatible wire-free pair.

Similar again to AirPods, you'll also be able to perform basic location functions within the Find My Device app and website. So if you lose them, you can use that service to see its last location and time of last use.

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If they're within range, you'll be able to get them to play a sound to make them easier to locate, as well as unpair them.

Of course, that's not all. More controls are going to be available in Android Q - when it becomes publicly available.

The Bluetooth device details page within the Settings app will give you a baked-in earphone management tool where you get the ability to adjust the EQ, launch the "Find My Device" service, and access the built-in Assistant and notifications settings (if the earphones have that feature).

Currently, Google's list of compatible earphones is relatively short, with the company stating that "10+" devices are currently using the technology, and most on its list seem to be low-end devices from non-major audio brands.

JBL, 1More, Jaybird and LG are undoubtedly the most well-known, but there's no mention of Bose, Sennheiser, Sony or B&O.

As Android Q release gets nearer, and more devices are announced, we expect to see this list grow. It'll be interesting to see if more manufacturers adopt the technology over the coming months and years.