It is not an exaggeration that over the years, the mere process of attempting to share a movie or an album with a friend using a windows laptop has been a frustrating experience. Whereas macOS and mobile systems such as Android and iOS have traditionally provided native functionality to support simultaneous dual-headset audio, Windows users had been left to rely on poorly supported software hacks such as "Stereo Mix" -assuming they could be used.
That period of difficult workarounds is eventually ending. As part of Windows 11 Insider feature, Microsoft has stated that it will provide a feature called Shared audio (preview) that can be used to stream the same audio output to two distinct wireless devices by one PC.
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The good news? It is a native experience that is built in windows. The caveat? It will probably require purchasing a completely new AI-based Copilot+ PC to use it immediately.
The Functionality: Common Audio: Simplified.
This is the point of Shared audio: to enable two individuals to listen to the same audio on the same PC privately. This exposes possibilities such as students listening to music during a study session, or family members watching a movie on an aircraft without having to inconvenience others. The feature will support headphones, speakers, earbuds, and ear hearing aids, too.
To access the feature, it is not complicated:
- Add a Bluetooth LE Audio device with a pair and connection to your Windows 11 PC.
- Swipe up to the Quick Settings (it is the same place where Wi-Fi and battery settings can be found).
- Click on the "Shared audio (preview)" tile in order to choose and begin sharing the audio to both output devices.
This gesture-based, Quick Settings interface is a giant leap forward in terms of handling the cumbersome, driver-reliant software aggregation solutions that hitherto have been the sole choice on Windows.
The Technology Innovation: Bluetooth LE Audio.
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| (Image Credit :Microsoft) |
Why has windows taken up so long to keep up with the dual headset trend? The brief response is the weakness of the conventional Bluetooth that was designed to operate in one-to-one connections. The installation of an audio stream to two traditional Bluetooth gadgets, which was attempted, would tend to introduce visible latency so that the audio would not be in sync between the two headsets.
Windows 11 features the native solution that is based on the latest industry standard: Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) Audio broadcast technology. This is the solution to the problem of synchronization with the help of this technology. It enables PC to send one high bandwidth stream of audio to more than one receiver (two accessories in this case) at the same time.
The new LE Audio standard delivers a better quality of audio and low power usage as compared to older Bluetooth standards, and the synchronization needed to achieve a shared media experience.
A Crucial Limitation
To ensure the synchronization processes are perfectly synchronized, there is no rule that needs to be compromised in the preview and that is, the two listening devices be Bluetooth LE audio compatible wireless devices. At this point, it is not possible to make a single wireless headset compatible with a single wired device, because the latency introduced by the over-the-air transmission of the Bluetooth connection would be almost unimaginable to adjust, to an impeccable fit, with the latency of the wired connection.
The Catch: This Only Works with PCs of Copilot+.
Though the technology behind Shared audio is robust and groundbreaking, the early popularity of the technology is extremely limited. At this point, Microsoft is restricting the preview to a particular model of new computers: Copilot+ PCs.
This is only known to work on a few new devices based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon X platform such as:
- Surface Laptop (13.8 inches and 15-inches)
- Surface Pro (13-inch)
- Other models such as the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge and some models with the Intel core ultra series of 200 should be supported shortly.
Rationale behind the Strict Hardware Requirement?
The reason behind this restriction is not arbitrary, it is a technical barrier that is intended to control the quality. LE Audio and the Shared audio feature require a device to have the Windows 11 version 22H2 or later and compatible Bluetooth LE support, the required audio codec, and LE audio specific capable drivers provided by the manufacturer.
Limiting the preview to Copilot+ PCs, which are characterized by the inclusion of a Neural Processing Unit (NPU) with 40+ Trillions of Operations Per Second (TOPS) of processing and processing power, Microsoft makes sure the initial feature release is on certified hardware with the assured driver stability and processing capacity needed to power the complex, synchronized dual-stream audio without any issues. This is to offer a bug free and premium customer experience prior to its release to the broader PC ecosystem.
Closing the Gap
The launch of Shared audio is the next attempt by Microsoft to enter the competition in the wireless audio innovation race. Though Android (with its open standard Auracast technology) and Apple (with its proprietary Share Audio feature) have provided this functionality long since, Microsoft adopting the open Bluetooth LE Audio standard to the huge Windows desktop market is a significant move in the right direction.
To Windows Insiders who have the latest Copilot+ hardware (Build 26220.7051 on the Dev and Beta channels), this would mean an immediate solution to audio sharing pains. To the rest of the world it is a very good indication that native, synchronized support of dual-headset is, at last, fully coming to Windows 11, although the manufacturers will need to provide the required driver updates to their current hardware once the preview period is over.