Your workplace Google Meet calls should soon be a lot less echo-y following a new update for the service.
The company has revealed it is now introducing de-reverberation to its video conferencing platform, hopefully removing painful echoes from group calls and improving sound quality as a whole.
The update is rolling out now for all users, and is enabled by default, meaning Google Meet calls should now be a lot more pleasant, especially if using a headset or for those working from home, where certain surfaces are not conducive to great sound quality.
Google Meet echoes
In a blog post announcing the update, Google Meet noted how the change would remove reverberations from sound recorded by your microphone.
It added that de-reverberation will automatically filter out echoes created by spaces with hard surfaces, such as a basement or a kitchen. This should all help to "ensure optimal audio quality" the company said.
Users won't need to make any changes to their existing Google Meet set up, although workplace admins may need to check whether their subscription is compatible.
The update is available now for Google Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, the Teaching and Learning upgrade, and Frontline customers. However Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Education Fundamentals, Education Standard, Nonprofits, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers aren't yet included.
Google Meet had previously launched a number of sound quality improvement tools, including background noise filtering back in June 2020 as it looked to capitalise on user demand for video conferencing services during the pandemic.
The news comes shortly after Meet rival Microsoft Teams also announced several major upgrades to sound quality on its calls. The changes, developed using a machine learning model trained on 30,000 hours of speech samples, include echo cancellation, better adjusting audio in poor acoustic environments, and allowing users to speak and hear at the same time without interruptions.
The news comes shortly after the company announced it would be bringing Google Meet together with its more consumer-focused Duo platform into one single platform.
The move will provide users with "a single, integrated solution for both video calling and meetings", as Duo is renamed to Google Meet later in 2022.
