Google has just announced a new feature that will make it much harder for you to hear echoes of your voice. The company is calling this feature “Echo Cancellation.” The new feature is available on Google Now, and it will work in a similar way to the current “Echo” feature that Google offers on its other platforms. When you use the Echo feature, you can set a time limit for how long the echo sound will stay on screen. If the echo sound stays on screen for too long, you can turn it off by pressing the “Cancel” button. The Echo Cancellation feature is a nice addition, and it should help to reduce some of the annoyance that people experience when they hear echoes of their own voices.
We’ve all been in a meeting where that one person is causing an echo for everyone. Now, Google has announced that it is aiming to prevent that issue by alerting you that you’re creating an echo for everyone else. No longer will you need to put the meeting on hold to let that person what’s going on.
Google Meet already tried to fix echo by controlling the audio and removing it. As hard as Google might try, echo is bound to happen sometimes. With a new update to Google Meet, the video conferencing service will alert you if other call participants may hear a notable echo from your system.
Next time you start a meeting, the software will show you a red dot on the more options button to let you know that others might hear an echo. You’ll also receive a text notification about the problem.
If you click on the notification, you’ll be taken to a Google Meet help page that’ll provide you with recommended steps to remove the echo.
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Of course, there’s always the option of muting yourself if you can’t seem to get the echo to stop and you don’t have to talk.
It’s embarrassing to sit through a whole meeting only to find out after that you’ve been annoying everyone with an echo, so at least knowing that it’s happening will let you stop it so everyone else can enjoy (or pretend to enjoy) the meeting.
