Although Bluetooth LE Audio was announced at the beginning of 2020, there still aren’t that many audio products on the market that support it. In 2024, though, we’re finally seeing many audio products come on the market with LE Audio support either out of the box or soon in a future update. However, to actually take advantage of LE Audio’s numerous benefits and new features, you need to own a mobile device or PC that supports the standard. Unfortunately, if you own a Google Pixel 6, Pixel 6 Pro, or Pixel 6a, then you may need to upgrade your phone entirely to use Bluetooth LE Audio.

When you connect your phone to a pair of wireless earbuds, the source device (your phone) and the sink device (your wireless earbuds) establish a connection via their Bluetooth radios. During the pairing process, the devices negotiate to find out what profiles they both support. These profiles define how the two devices exchange data. The profile typically used for streaming audio from the source to the sink device over Bluetooth is called the Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP). The exact codec that’s used to store the audio data that’s transmitted between the two devices depends on what codecs both devices support, but at a minimum, both devices must support the low-complexity subband codec (SBC).

Although Bluetooth LE Audio was announced at the beginning of 2020, there still aren’t that many audio products on the market that support it. In 2024, though, we’re finally seeing many audio products come on the market with LE Audio support either out of the box or soon in a future update. However, to actually take advantage of LE Audio’s numerous benefits and new features, you need to own a mobile device or PC that supports the standard. Unfortunately, if you own a Google Pixel 6, Pixel 6 Pro, or Pixel 6a, then you may need to upgrade your phone entirely to use Bluetooth LE Audio.

When you connect your phone to a pair of wireless earbuds, the source device (your phone) and the sink device (your wireless earbuds) establish a connection via their Bluetooth radios. During the pairing process, the devices negotiate to find out what profiles they both support. These profiles define how the two devices exchange data. The profile typically used for streaming audio from the source to the sink device over Bluetooth is called the Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP). The exact codec that’s used to store the audio data that’s transmitted between the two devices depends on what codecs both devices support, but at a minimum, both devices must support the low-complexity subband codec (SBC).

We’ve been reporting on the network issues that Google Pixel owners have faced since the March 2024 Pixel Feature Update. Users continue to complain that calls on their Pixel 6 series, Pixel 7 series, and Pixel 8 series often go directly to voicemail, especially when the phone is left unused for a while. Texts also aren’t coming through on time, and they are delivered only in batches. A few solutions are floating around from exasperated users, and in the absence of an acknowledgment and solution from Google, you can try these out.

As per comments on a Reddit thread, many users report that turning off 5G on their Pixel smartphone and switching to LTE-only fixes their network issues. To turn off 5G on your Pixel, follow these steps:

1. Open the Settings app.
2. Navigate to Network & internet > SIMs > Preferred network type.
3. Here, you can choose LTE as the preferred network. This will stop your phone from connecting to 5G.

We have not encountered the issue on our devices, so we cannot confirm if disabling 5G fixes the network issues. If you’ve encountered call and text issues on your Pixel, please try turning off 5G and let us know if this fixes your problem.

Facing network issues on your Pixel? Try these other temporary fixes

We’ve collated the different pieces of advice floating around on the internet from different users. You can try out these fixes individually to see if any of them fix your problem.

• Turn off 5G.
• Turn off Wi-Fi calling.
  • Alternatively, you can set Wi-Fi calling to Call over Wi-Fi instead of the default Call over mobile network setting.
• Turn off the Adaptive Connectivity setting. It can be found in Settings > Network & Connections > Adaptive Connectivity.
• Toggle Airplane mode on and off. This will temporarily fix the issue, but you will have to repeat this multiple times a day.
• Manually roll back to February 2024 firmware. However, this is not advised for most users due to the inherent risk of breaking your phone during the flashing process.

It’s a shame that users have to resort to a variety of trial-and-error solutions in an effort to fix what many consider a smartphone’s core function. A phone that is unreliable for calls doesn’t deserve to be called a phone, much less a smart one, and it’s unfortunate that so many people are going through this experience on a Pixel.

We’ve followed up with Google again on this issue but have not received a response yet. We’ll update this article if and when we hear back from them.

We’ve been reporting on the network issues that Google Pixel owners have faced since the March 2024 Pixel Feature Update. Users continue to complain that calls on their Pixel 6 series, Pixel 7 series, and Pixel 8 series often go directly to voicemail, especially when the phone is left unused for a while. Texts also aren’t coming through on time, and they are delivered only in batches. A few solutions are floating around from exasperated users, and in the absence of an acknowledgment and solution from Google, you can try these out.

As per comments on a Reddit thread, many users report that turning off 5G on their Pixel smartphone and switching to LTE-only fixes their network issues. To turn off 5G on your Pixel, follow these steps:

1. Open the Settings app.
2. Navigate to Network & internet > SIMs > Preferred network type.
3. Here, you can choose LTE as the preferred network. This will stop your phone from connecting to 5G.

We have not encountered the issue on our devices, so we cannot confirm if disabling 5G fixes the network issues. If you’ve encountered call and text issues on your Pixel, please try turning off 5G and let us know if this fixes your problem.

Facing network issues on your Pixel? Try these other temporary fixes

We’ve collated the different pieces of advice floating around on the internet from different users. You can try out these fixes individually to see if any of them fix your problem.

• Turn off 5G.
• Turn off Wi-Fi calling.
  • Alternatively, you can set Wi-Fi calling to Call over Wi-Fi instead of the default Call over mobile network setting.
• Turn off the Adaptive Connectivity setting. It can be found in Settings > Network & Connections > Adaptive Connectivity.
• Toggle Airplane mode on and off. This will temporarily fix the issue, but you will have to repeat this multiple times a day.
• Manually roll back to February 2024 firmware. However, this is not advised for most users due to the inherent risk of breaking your phone during the flashing process.

It’s a shame that users have to resort to a variety of trial-and-error solutions in an effort to fix what many consider a smartphone’s core function. A phone that is unreliable for calls doesn’t deserve to be called a phone, much less a smart one, and it’s unfortunate that so many people are going through this experience on a Pixel.

We’ve followed up with Google again on this issue but have not received a response yet. We’ll update this article if and when we hear back from them.