You may suppose a Google telephone could be the only option to regulate your Google-branded audio system, however that’s not essentially true: Google’s actions have probably opened the door for different producers to do what the Pixel legally can not, writes Android sleuth Mishaal Rahman at Esper.

Final week, we wrote how “Your Google residence audio system are about to get barely worse as a result of Sonos sued and gained.” In the event you’re utilizing a Google Pixel, that’s true — amongst different issues, you gained’t have the ability to management the amount of a multi-zone Google Solid speaker group. That’s as a result of the US Worldwide Commerce Fee dominated that Google copied Sonos’ know-how and threatened to dam imports except Google carried out 5 particular software program tweaks. One of many Sonos patents particularly handled controlling quantity of a multi-zone speaker group.

However when Rahman dug into the Android 12 code, he discovered that the method Google disabled distant speaker group quantity management is extremely primary: Google merely set a single worth from “true” to “false” by itself Pixel telephones. Rahman writes:

the second patch appears tailor-made to permit Google to ship Pixel telephones with out the flexibility to regulate the amount of distant speaker group classes. But it surely additionally leaves a simple method for OEMs to ship their very own gadgets with the characteristic enabled. All an OEM must do is construct AOSP with GMS and depart the default worth (‘true’) for the config_volumeAdjustmentForRemoteGroupSessions flag in place.

It appears like if Samsung or Xiaomi (at present the world’s high two Android producers) need their telephones to regulate the amount of a complete speaker group (one thing a Google Pixel can not do as of the most recent replace), they don’t must carry any extra fingers. They only must keep away from deliberately turning it off. And Rahman says that — at the least in beta — the upcoming Android 12L works this manner as properly.

(For the uninitiated, “construct AOSP with GMS” merely means to take the essential model of Android that Google affords free to producers, with the Google providers that the corporate usually licenses with it, which is what most Android telephone makers do anyhow earlier than they pores and skin Android with additions of their very own.)

None of which means any telephone maker will essentially take Google up on this risk. For all I do know — I’m not a lawyer — Sonos may simply flip round and sue them, too, utilizing its victory towards Google as precedent. But it surely’s all very intriguing to consider.