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Last week, Google announced the second beta version of Android 15, which brings long-awaited features like Private Space, App Pairs, Predictive Back and more. The second beta also quietly introduced a revamped volume panel UI, but we weren’t too surprised by that since we already knew it was coming. However, the second beta surprisingly brought back a volume-related feature that we weren’t sure would ever return to Pixel phones: the ability to control the volume of speaker groups during a broadcast!

When you create a speaker group consisting of one or more Assistant-enabled devices in the Google Home app, you can stream audio to that group from your phone using a Cast-enabled app. For example, let’s say I create a speaker group called “Nest Hubs” that consists of my bedroom Nest Hub and my living room Nest Hub. If I open the YouTube Music app, start playing a song, and then tap the cast icon, I can select “Nest Hubs” to start playing on both of my Nest Hubs at the same time.

If I keep the YouTube Music app open, I can control the volume of my speaker group by pressing the volume keys on my phone. This functionality is available no matter what device I use. However, if I open another app while YouTube Music is streaming, whether I can still control the volume of my speaker group using my phone’s volume keys depends on what phone I’m using and what version of software I’m running. If I’m using a Pixel phone running a software version before Android 15 Beta 2, then I can’t control the volume of my speaker group unless I open the YouTube Music app again. If I’m using a phone from another manufacturer, then I’ll have no problem controlling the volume of my speaker array.

The reason for this strange discrepancy is that Google intentionally blocks Pixel devices from being able to control the volume of Google Home speaker groups during streaming. Google did this out of an abundance of caution while they were fighting a legal dispute. Back in 2020, speaker company Sonos sued Google for alleged patent infringement. This led Google to remove several features from its range of Nest speakers and smart displays, but it also caused them to remove the speaker group volume controls from the Pixel phones. Other Android phones were not affected by this change, as only Google was named by Sonos in its lawsuit, which is why only Pixel phones were unable to control the volume of speaker groups outside of the streaming app.

In late 2023, however, a California judge overturned a jury verdict that favored Sonos. Google responded by immediately re-enabling the ability to add Nest speakers, displays, and Chromecast devices to multiple speaker groups. However, they never brought back the ability to control speaker group volume from a Pixel phone, at least until now. With the release of Android 15 Beta 2 last week, we can confirm that Google has finally restored this functionality.

In late 2021, Google introduced config_volumeAdjustmentForRemoteGroupSessions a flag that specifies whether “platform-level volume control is enabled for remote sessions on clustered devices.” The default value of this flag is set to “true” in AOSP, but was specifically overridden to “false” in Google builds for Android for Pixel devices. However, this is no longer the case in Android 15 Beta 2 builds for Pixel phones, which is why the speaker group volume controls finally work.

Another casting-related feature still missing from Pixel phones (but present on other Android devices) is stream expansion. When you stream music to any speaker and then open the output media switcher, you should be able to select additional devices to stream to. This is the case with several non-Pixel devices I’ve checked, but not with any of my Pixel devices, even the ones running Android 15 Beta 2. Hopefully this functionality should be restored to Pixel devices in the future, but we’re not sure when that will happen.