After being taken down by Google in response to a lawsuit filed by Sonos, the feature is now back!
The second beta of Android 15, which includes much-anticipated features like Private Space, App Pairs, Predictive Back, and more, was revealed by Google last week. A revised volume panel user interface was also subtly unveiled in the second beta, however this came as no surprise to us as we had anticipated it. The option to adjust speaker group volume when casting was a feature we were not sure would ever return to Pixel phones, but the second beta unexpectedly brought it back!
Using a Cast-enabled app on your phone, you can cast audio to a speaker group you have created in the Google Home app that consists of one or more Assistant-enabled devices. As an illustration, suppose I create a speaker group called "Nest Hubs" and include my living room and bedroom Nest Hubs. When I launch the YouTube Music app, choose "Nest Hubs" to begin playing the music on both of my Nest Hubs at once, and then hit the cast icon.
I can use my phone's volume keys to adjust the speaker group's volume if I keep the YouTube Music app open. Whichever device I use, I can use this functionality. It depends on the phone and software version I am using, though, if I can still use the volume keys on my phone to adjust the volume of my speaker group if I open another app while YouTube Music is playing.I have to restart the YouTube Music app in order to adjust the speaker group volume on a Pixel phone running a software version lower than Android 15 Beta 2. I will not have any trouble managing my speaker group's volume if I am using a phone made by another company.
Google purposefully prevented Pixel devices from being able to adjust the volume of Google Home speaker groups while casting, which accounts for this strange disparity. Google took this action during a court battle out of a sense of caution. 2020 saw the lawsuit against Google by speaker company Sonos over claims of patent infringement.As a result, Google eliminated a number of features from its range of Nest smart displays and speakers, as well as the speaker group volume settings from Pixel phones. Since Sonos only identified Google in its complaint, other Android phones were unaffected by this move. As a result, only Pixel phones have been unable to adjust the volume of speaker groups outside of the casting app.
However, a California judge reversed the jury decision that supported Sonos back in late 2023. In response, Google reinstated the feature of adding Nest speakers, screens, and Chromecast devices to various speaker groups right away. But, up until this point, they have not restored the capability of managing speaker group volume on a Pixel phone. Google eventually brought this feature back, as we can confirm with the release of Android 15 Beta 2 last week.
Google added the config_volumeAdjustmentForRemoteGroupSessions flag towards the end of 2021. This flag lets you know if "platform level volume adjustments are enabled for remote sessions on grouped devices." Although this flag's AOSP default value is set to "true," Google's Android builds for Pixel devices specifically override it to "false." However, speaker group volume controls are now functional in the Android 15 Beta 2 versions for Pixel phones, as that was previously the case.
Stream expansion is another casting-related function that Pixel phones now lack but other Android devices have. You should be able to choose other devices to cast to when you cast music to any speaker and then flip open the media output switcher. That is the situation on a few non-Pixel smartphones that I looked at, but not on any of my Pixel devices—not even the ones running Android 15 Beta 2—that is. In the future, hopefully, this functionality will also be restored to Pixel smartphones; however, we are unsure of when that will occur.