Do AirPods Pro 2 provide ANC to the caller during a phone conversation?

[Yoms]

Hi,

I know how ANC works for me, but I'm wondering if ANC works both ways, i.e. if there's music/noise/etc. where I'm standing, will it be filtered out so that my caller only hears my voice and nothing else during our phone conversation?

If yes, how good is it on AirPods Pro 2? Do your callers say that they hear nothing else but your voice?

Thanks.

 

[mavis]

If ANC is employed for outgoing audio, it's minimal at best. My callers say they can hear traffic noise and rain, etc, even when I can't. Although they all said the audio was greatly improved when I switched from the old AirPods Pro to the 2nd gen.

 

[Yoms]

If ANC is employed for outgoing audio, it's minimal at best. My callers say they can hear traffic noise and rain, etc, even when I can't. Although they all said the audio was greatly improved when I switched from the old AirPods Pro to the 2nd gen.

Thanks for sharing this.

According to your reply, it's kinda weird because ANC already does the job for you. Why on earth wouldn't that be enabled for you caller as well? If I'm not mistaken, there's no extra job to be performed here.

 

[trazan]

Why on earth wouldn't that be enabled for you caller as well? If I'm not mistaken, there's no extra job to be performed here.

They could easily feed the same signal going to the caller 180 degrees out of phase, but that would obviously also remove the sound of your voice...Complete silence. Which likely is not what you want 🥸

 

[andyw715]

They could easily feed the same signal going to the caller 180 degrees out of phase, but that would obviously also remove the sound of your voice...Complete silence. Which likely is not what you want 🥸

It could attempt to use the transparency mode algo.

Although I do think it does attempt to block some ambient noise

 

[Ralfi]

With my APP1, people on the other end have said it’s ’slightly’ better when going from Transparency to NC.

 

[Kottu]

In my experience, the other end could hear my voice much better when I use Airpods Max than Airpods pro 1. I work in a busy environment. Sometimes wife use to say it's really loud when a child cry or screem in the corridor. I myself don't hear it much though.

 

[Yoms]

They could easily feed the same signal going to the caller 180 degrees out of phase, but that would obviously also remove the sound of your voice...Complete silence. Which likely is not what you want 🥸

Nah, I guess that's not how it works. You have a signal that corresponds to the ambiant noise only. That's what subtracted to what you hear (music or caller). That very same signal could be subtracted to your own voice too to just let your voice and nothing else be sent to your caller.

Anyways, you all seem to say that there's none to a marginal improvement in that regard. So that settles it I guess. It's a pity though. A firmware update maybe?

 

[trazan]

Nah, I guess that's not how it works. You have a signal that corresponds to the ambiant noise only. That's what subtracted to what you hear (music or caller). That very same signal could be subtracted to your own voice too to just let your voice and nothing else be sent to your caller.

Anyways, you all seem to say that there's none to a marginal improvement in that regard. So that settles it I guess. It's a pity though. A firmware update maybe?

ANC feeds a version of measured ambient sound in opposite polarity to your ears. That includes any and all sounds around you. Your voice and any other voices. The ANC that gives you silence has nothing to do with the noise/voice filtering in a call situation. It's an entirely different process all-together.

 

[chabig]

It's an entirely different process all-together.

It's an entirely different process.

 

[Yoms]

ANC feeds a version of measured ambient sound in opposite polarity to your ears. That includes any and all sounds around you. Your voice and any other voices. The ANC that gives you silence has nothing to do with the noise/voice filtering in a call situation. It's an entirely different process all-together.

There's already voice recognition (Siri, FaceTime with multiple participants). So you can discriminate between your voice and ambient noise only. And that's what you feed to your caller. That would be the general idea.

Or at the VERY LEAST, when you're not talking but listening to your caller, there's only ambient noise on your side. So that's super easy to send that signal cancelled out to the caller as well so that she/he doesn't hear anything when she/he is talking.

 

[chabig]

There's already voice recognition (Siri, FaceTime with multiple participants). So you can discriminate between your voice and ambient noise only.

That just works because the signal/noise ratio is high enough to do voice recognition.

Reducing ambient background noise is not that easy. Because the user's voice comes through the same microphone as the ambient sounds, you can't simply subtract one signal from another to eliminate the noise.

I have seen some AI on the web that shows promise in identifying and amplifying human voice over noise, but that requires more computing power than is currently in AirPods. Still, if there is a way, I'm sure Apple will figure it out.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

Nah, I guess that's not how it works. You have a signal that corresponds to the ambiant noise only. That's what subtracted to what you hear (music or caller). That very same signal could be subtracted to your own voice too to just let your voice and nothing else be sent to your caller.

Anyways, you all seem to say that there's none to a marginal improvement in that regard. So that settles it I guess. It's a pity though. A firmware update maybe?

To the AirPods microphone, your voice is going to sound pretty much the same as the “Ambient noise.” I’m sure there’s a little bit that could be done through DSP, but not a ton.

 

[Yoms]

That just works because the signal/noise ratio is high enough to do voice recognition.

Reducing ambient background noise is not that easy. Because the user's voice comes through the same microphone as the ambient sounds, you can't simply subtract one signal from another to eliminate the noise.

I have seen some AI on the web that shows promise in identifying and amplifying human voice over noise, but that requires more computing power than is currently in AirPods. Still, if there is a way, I'm sure Apple will figure it out.

I thought it would work here too for the same reason you gave, i.e. the signal (your voice)/ambient noise is quite favourable because your mouth is so close to the mic compared to the ambient sound.

I remember a few times I was passing by people drilling, hammering and when I asked my caller if they could still hear me, they always said "yes". And that was just on a plain old iPhone. It was because I spoke directly in the phone's mic. Somehow I thought the same idea could happen here.

Anyways, it is what it is and comments here all agree upon the fact that it doesn't work this way at the moment.