Google Pixel 2: Now Playing Feature Uses AmbientSense to Minimize Battery Drain

Google Pixle 2’s Now Playing, Uses Less Battery

Google has recently launched its latest smart phone the Google pixel 2. There were a lot of rumors associated with the phone prior to its launch. One such rumor has do with “ now playing ”, a feature that comes pre-installed on the phone.

The now playing feature identifies the song playing in the background. Now Playing is something like Shazam but this feature does not require the use of a wifi connection or the cloud so to speak. The now playing feature allows you to identify the song playing in the background even when your phone is locked with the name of the song appearing on the lock screen.

Rumors pre- launch informed tech gurus that the now playing feature could be used without sending data to the cloud and it did not need an individual to work online.

Now playing uses ambient sense to function, which allows the now playing feature to identify songs. Ambient sense promises to use less battery life when the feature is in operation.

So what is ambient sense? Ambient sense is a system on the phone that recognizes sounds playing in the background. Ambient sound comes in the form of an app on the play store and needs only access to a smart phone’s micro phone to analyze sounds.

Any sound identifying app either uses one of two methods by which it can identify sounds, which are an autonomous method or server method. Autonomous mode analyses background sounds by transferring the sound to a local database while a server method identifies sound by transferring it to the cloud. That means the server method requires the use of a wifi connection.

The now playing feature in google pixel 2 uses the autonomous method to identify sounds. There is no requirement for the now playing feature to connect to the cloud to function. This is the part that makes this feature even more incredible.

The Google team has tested the ambient sound system in various phones and found it to use a lot less battery life and the most important point to note is that the phones tested are comparatively old as compared to the Google pixel 2.

Right now this feature already comes pre -installed on a Google pixel 2 and 2XL phone. The research team in Google are now taking steps to bring this feature to the Google pixel smart phone and after that they plan to bring this feature to non- google phones.

Recent reviews show that the now playing feature in google pixel 2 phones works well. This feature can be used in settings with a lot of noise besides the background song that the feature has to recognize.

So if you find yourself sitting in a crowded and noisy restaurant with your favorite song playing in the background and you just cannot get that name of the song playing for the life of you, then worry no more as google’s now playing feature comes to the rescue. What’s even more great is that you can use the now playing feature offline.