Android 11 audio output switcher supports cast devices

One of the most useful new features of Android 11 is Switch audio output quickly Without jumping into your settings. However, in its current state it only works with Bluetooth devices, which makes it less useful. However, in the future, Android 11 audio output switchers will work with cast devices, which can cause major failures.

Currently, the Android 11 audio switcher serves its purpose. If you have multiple Bluetooth devices connected, you can quickly switch between the device and your mobile phone speaker. Sure, it’s a pretty niche use case. It’s useful for playing audio from phone speakers when you’re in a car paired with Bluetooth, but there are very few scenarios where this can be useful.

However, the ability to push audio to a variety of Chromecast-enabled products is far more useful to many. Ron Amadeo Pointed out on Twitter, Android Support page It makes it clear that this feature is coming, but it’s not what you expected.

Instead of updating the entire cast platform to provide this functionality, Android app developers need to add it individually. This means that you need to make aggressive changes to support cast devices such as Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, YouTube Music and other media apps. Specifically, you need to support a version of the beta “mediarouter” library.

Why is this? Android police I will point out what seems to be the biggest reason. Not all apps that place media in notification shades actually support casting to speakers or TVs. For these Android apps, viewing the cast device with an audio output switcher can be quite frustrating for the end user. As a result, we have to wait for such an app Do Support Chromecast and push updates.

For these developers, the following Google video explains what needs to be changed for this feature to work. As mentioned above The support page is Another useful resource.

Android 11 details:

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