Phil Nickinson / Digital Trends
Samsung today announced a series of updates for some televisions and a trio of earbuds that will add features across the board, and also allow everything to play together that much more.
Auracast is one of the more interesting features on the way. It essentially allows one device to pick up a signal being broadcast by another, not unlike a radio. Samsung has had Auracast on select TVs for a while now, and it’s been available on multiple Galaxy Buds earbuds. Now, it’s expanding to phones and tablets. The ability to broadcast will hit the Galaxy S24 and S23 phones, the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Z Flip 5, and the Tab S9 series. (They’ll all need to have One UI 6.1 or newer.) And the ability to listen to an Auracast broadcast is coming to the Galaxy S24 series, S23 series, Z Fold5, Z Fold4, Z Flip5, Z Flip4, A54 5G, M54 5G, Tab S9 series, Tab S9 FE series and Tab Active 5 5G with One UI 5.1.1 or above.
We demoed Auracast at CES 2024. It’s going to be a game-changer. Maybe not right away, but it opens up some really cool possibilities.
Then there’s 360 Audio, which is what it sounds like, as it makes it sound like the sound is coming from all around you. Samsung previously supported it on phones and tablets, and now it’s coming to more devices. Samsung says it’ll work with the Galaxy Buds2 Pro and Buds 2. And it’ll be served up from TVs including the Samsung Neo QLED 8K (QN900D, QN800D), Neo QLED 4K (QN95D, QN90D, QN87D, QN85D), OLED (S95D, S90D, S85D) and QLED (Q80D, Q70D).
Samsung is also making it easier to switch functionality between devices. So if you’re using your Samsung Galaxy Buds with your Samsung TV and a call comes in, things should automatically shift the headphones back to the phone and then back to the TV once the call is over. And an update will help bring this switching to the Galaxy Book4, as well. All this seamless switching will work with the Galaxy Buds2 Pro, Galaxy phones and tablets with One UI 4.1.1 and up, the Galaxy Book series with One UI 6.0 and up, Galaxy Watch 4, and Samsung TVs from February 2022 and newer.
And if you’re using Galaxy Buds and a Galaxy S24 phone, you’ll be able to take advantage of real-time translation, where another person talks into your phone, and you hear the translation in your Buds. Then they’ll hear the translation on their end through your phone speaker.
Samsung says updates should start pushing live in late February.
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