During its Galaxy Buds 3 Pro reveal, Samsung spent a lot of time talking up the earbuds’ AI features. But there was one non-AI feature the company neglected to mention that deserves a spotlight of its own.
It is called Voice control and it allows users to control the earbuds via vocal inputs without the need for a wakeup command. You don’t have to say “Hey Bixby” or anything like that. Instead, you give basic commands to the Buds 3 Pro, they will pick up the input and make the necessary adjustments.
It appears the feature has been discovered by the user Stephancevallos905 on the Samsung subreddit. According to their comments, saying “Volume up” or “Volume down” is all you need to say to control the volume level. No additional input is needed.
Industry Insider Mishaal Rahman later appeared in a Reddit thread explaining how Voice Control works after doing some field testing. He claims the Buds 3 Pro were able to pick up his commands in both a drugstore and a noisy subway without having to shout into their microphones
Command and control
Rahman notes that Voice Control isn’t enabled by default. Galaxy Buds 3 Pro owners will have to manually enable it by heading to the Galaxy Wearable app. Once enabled, you’ll be presented with a list of the exact commands you need to say to register the action. For example, you’ll need to say “Stop Music” to pause playback, as “Pause,” “Pause Music,” or some similar variation on the original won’t work.
The funny thing is that other people can mess with the earbuds. Android Authority claims that because the pair doesn’t have a wake word and aren’t directionally trained, a friend could pull a prank and crank up the volume while you’re wearing them. All they have to do is say the appropriate command into the earbuds.
Voice control is a very useful feature “in terms of convenience.” However, you do need to be aware of your surroundings so that the Galaxy Buds don’t pick up input from others. We’ve reached out to Samsung to ask about the issue and whether it plans to release a software patch to fix it. We’ll update this story if we hear back.
Be sure to check out Ny Breaking’s list of the best earbuds for 2024.