Are you listening to your tunes, but your neighbor is feeling talkative? Ordering a latte but your hands are full and you can’t pause your podcast? Conversation detection, a feature found on some headsets and earphones, can be a game-changer. Instead of removing your active noise-cancelling headphones or using your hands to pause audio, this handy feature detects voices, pauses audio, and turns off noise cancellation.
This fluidity between the cozy comfort of noise cancellation and the bustling real world is extremely useful and easy to implement. There are, however, a few important things to note to get the best automatic conversation detection experience.
Most noise-canceling headphones, including those from Bose and many other manufacturers, have a mode called Aware, Awareness, or Transparency. This reinforces ambient sound, often in vocal frequency ranges. What I’m talking about here is a detection feature that allows you to automatically switch to this mode instead of having to manually select it.
You’ll typically see this feature on flagship headphones from Apple, Sony, Google, and Samsung. Everyone calls it something slightly different: Apple has Conversation Awareness, Samsung has Voice Detect, Google has Conversation Detection, and Sony has Speak-to-Chat.
Don’t miss any of our unbiased technical content and lab reviews. Add CNET as your preferred Google source.
How it works
Enable
Talk modes are usually accessible in your headset’s companion app settings. If your phone and headphones are both Apple or Google, go to the phone settings and access this feature by tapping on your headphones. Always make sure to update the firmware on all your devices. Apple iOS also provides access to Conversation Awareness through the Control Center that appears when you swipe down from the top of the screen.
Detect
The array of tiny microphones built into your headphones or earphones for calls and noise cancellation will detect your voice for awareness mode. Many headphones have built-in accelerometers for features like head tracking and on-ear/head detection; these can also be used to pick up jaw movement to verify that it’s you speaking and not someone nearby.
Samsung has a separate but related siren detection feature that automatically activates Transparency mode when a siren is detected, so you can hear what’s happening in an emergency. (Some brands do the opposite and increase the ANC when loud sound is detected.)
Automatic sound adjustment
Once enabled, Awareness Modes also pause or decrease the volume of currently playing audio. This behavior differs depending on the brand. For example, Apple devices mute music but pause podcasts. Samsung, on the contrary, mutes all sound, while Sony and Google devices both pause all sound. Ideally you would be able to choose the behavior, but currently this is still rare. Apple is adding Conversation Boost, which uses mics and accelerometers to amplify the voice of the person you’re talking to via head tracking.
End chat and resume
Then, either through technological prowess or simply by detecting when you stop speaking (adjustable on some brands, including Sony), the headphones detect that the conversation is over and return to the previous audio, at the same volume and in the same noise cancellation mode. Many models are better than humans at detecting the end of a conversation.
Any model with this feature will also allow you to manually turn talk mode on/off by pressing and holding a button or performing a similar action.
The fine print
Conversation detection is triggered by your voice, not someone else’s, so you might end up asking people to repeat themselves when you notice them talking to you. This request will trigger conversation mode. Depending on how detection works on a specific model, both earbuds may need to be in your ears for it to work.
Sometimes conversation detection can be inadvertently triggered by coughing, singing accompanied by music, or other random ambient sounds. It may also not work properly in extremely noisy environments, such as construction sites and airplanes. Some models allow you to adjust the sensitivity, which we’d like to see more of in firmware updates and future releases.
Frequent listeners of podcasts or audiobooks should choose headphones that pause all conversation audio, or at least manage it intelligently by distinguishing audio types and pausing podcasts or audiobooks so you don’t miss anything. However, Apple and Samsung won’t pause videos from services like Netflix or YouTube; they just turn down the sound.
As with all features using sensors and microphones, conversation detection will affect battery life to some extent, although it’s not a major leak.
The final verdict
Conversation detection modes aren’t for everyone, especially rambunctious souls who talk to themselves at full volume, shout out the news, or sing along to the beat. If you reflexively remove your headphones to talk to others, you don’t need this feature either, unless you want to change that habit.
In the future, I’d like to see more adjustability, but even the way this feature is implemented in the current line of headphones and earphones is a great upgrade to the smoothness of digital life.
