Send volume control for speaker groups on Pixel phones is back!

Last week, Google announced the second beta version of Android 15, which brings long-awaited features like Private Space, App Pairs, Predictive Back and more. The second beta also quietly introduced a revamped volume bar UI, but we weren’t too surprised because we already knew it was coming. However, the second beta surprisingly brought a volume-related feature that we weren’t sure would ever make it back to Pixel phones: the ability to control the volume of speaker groups while sending!

When you create a speaker group consisting of one or more Assistant-enabled devices in the Google Home app, you can send audio from your phone to that group using a Cast-enabled app. For example, let’s say I create a speaker group called “Nest Hubs” that consists of a Nest Hub in my bedroom and a Nest Hub in my living room. If I open the YouTube Music app, start playing a song, and then tap the send icon, I can select “Nest Hubs” and start playback on both of my Nest Hubs at the same time.

If I leave the YouTube Music app open, I can control the volume of my speaker group by pressing the volume buttons on my phone. This feature is available no matter what device I use. However, if I open another app while YouTube Music is streaming, whether I can still control the volume of my speaker group using the phone’s volume buttons depends on what phone I’m using and what software version it’s running. If I’m using a Pixel phone with a software version earlier than Android 15 Beta 2, I won’t be able to control the volume of my speaker group until I launch the YouTube Music app again. If I’m using a third-party phone, I’ll have no problems controlling the volume of my speaker group.

The reason for this strange discrepancy is that Google intentionally blocked the Pixel device from controlling the volume of the Google Home speaker groups when it shipped. Google did this out of an abundance of caution when they were fighting a legal battle. In 2020, speaker company Sonos sued Google for alleged patent infringement. This led to Google removing several features from its Nest range of speakers and smart displays, but it also led to the removal of speaker group volume controls from the Pixel phones. Other Android phones were not affected by this change, as Sonos only named Google in its lawsuit, and therefore only Pixel phones could not control the volume of speaker groups outside of the sending app.

However, in late 2023, a California judge overturned a jury verdict that favored Sonos. Google responded by immediately re-enabling the ability to add Nest speakers, displays, and Chromecast devices to multiple speaker groups. However, they never brought back the ability to control speaker group volume from the Pixel phone, at least not yet. With last week’s release of Android 15 Beta 2, we can confirm that Google has finally restored this functionality.

At the end of 2021, Google introduced config_volumeAdjustmentForRemoteGroupSessions flag that specifies whether “platform-level volume adjustments are enabled for remote sessions on clustered devices”. The default value of this flag is set to ‘true’ in AOSP, but it was specifically overridden to ‘false’ in Google’s build of Android for Pixel devices. However, this is no longer the case with the Android 15 Beta 2 build for Pixel phones, which is why the speaker group volume controls finally work.

Another streaming-related feature still missing from Pixel phones (but available on other Android devices) is stream extension. When you send music to any speaker and then open the media output switcher, you should be able to select additional devices to send to. This is the case with several non-Pixel devices I’ve reviewed, but not with any of my Pixel devices, not even those running Android 15 Beta 2. Hopefully this feature should be restored to Pixel devices in the future as well. , but we’re not sure when that will happen.