As part of its major Fall hardware event, during which Google launched its latest Pixel smartphones, thePixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, there were also some interesting mentions of thePixel Buds Pro.

If you’re wondering what new features were announced, what they’ll do and, most importantly, how to actually update your Google Pixel Buds, we’ve gathered all the key details for you right here.

What new features are coming to Pixel Buds Pro?

There are quite a few new features on the Pixel Buds Pro, and the update is rolling out now to let users get to grips with them immediately. Here are the additions.

Clearer voice calling

Pixel Buds Pro can now use Bluetooth Super Wideband if you’re connecting to your Pixel 8 or 8 Pro (so this won’t work on older Pixel phones) to harness AI for clearer calling.

This effectively gets rid of background noise and makes the voice you’re talking to the centre of the audio, regardless of what phonethey’reusing. Clear Calling was already pretty impressive, but this update should mean that Pixel 8 users with Pixel Buds Pro should have a noticeable upgrade.

Conversation Detection

Pixel Buds Pro has new a feature that is becoming increasingly common, to save you from having to take your earbuds out when checking out at a shop, or if someone asks you a question. Conversation Detection will start when you speak, pausing your music and activating transparency to let you hear your surroundings more clearly. When your conversation ends, your Pixel Buds Pro will start playing again with noise cancellation re-enabled.

Lower latency and wellness

Finally, the Pixel Buds Pro are able to use even lower latency connections when transmitting to and from a Pixel 8 or 8 Pro, making for even lower audio lag when gaming.

They’ll also now keep a log of your volume levels over time so that you can review this and see if you’re using volumes that aren’t ideal for long-term hearing too consistently to be safe.

How to update your Google Pixel Buds Pro firmware

If those features sound like they’re the sort of thing you’d like to get some use out of, and you’re going to be picking up a Pixel 8 or 8 Pro to unlock them all, then you’ll probably be wondering how to update your Pixel Buds Pro to actually get them. Thankfully it’s a simple process - here’s how.

Pixel Buds get updated automatically when they’re in their case near your phone (so often overnight), but these updates are a little hard to predict and don’t always happen at the earliest possible point.

You can push a manual update with these steps on a Pixel phone:

If you don’t have a Pixel, the steps for other Android phones are very similar, but we’ve put them below.

Either way, it can take 10 to 15 minutes for firmware updates to complete, so leave your phone near your Pixel Buds Pro and head off to do something else for a bit while it runs through.

This should leave you with a fully updated set of earbuds and all the new features we’ve run through above.