A better listening experience is just a few taps away
Samsung’s new Galaxy Buds 2 Pro are one of our favorite pairs of earbuds right now. They sound great, have very strong ANC, and look and feel much better than the last generation. But one of my favorite things about them, a unique and intuitive way to adjust your volume, without having to use your phone, is off by default. That’s a shame, because I’ve come to think of the volume control on the earpiece as almost essential on high-end headphones. Without it, I like the Buds 2 Pro much less, but it’s easy to turn on with just a few taps.
Galaxy Buds 2 Pro let you adjust their volume by touching your ears: two quick taps on your left ear lower the volume one notch, two taps on the right raise it. This isn’t actually exclusive to Samsung’s newest earbuds, it’s also an option on the first Galaxy Buds Pro and Galaxy Buds 2. But unless you’re the type to rummage through settings menus, you won’t know. Here’s how to enable the feature on Buds 2 Pro specifically.
- With your Buds 2 Pro connected to your phone, open the wearable galaxy app
- Play Headphone configuration
- Play laboratories
- Move the lever to Double tap on the edge of the earphone in
The setting is a bit hard to find, and isn’t named or described very well. Actually, tapping the rim of your earbud can activate normal touch controls: the outer surface of the earbud is touch-sensitive, so a double-tap on the rim could skip a track. The illustration in the Galaxy Wearable app explaining how to use the feature (which is even more hidden than the toggle) isn’t helpful either, showing a little cartoon hand touching an earbud in a way that, in real life, it would jump. a track.
Not a useful illustration, Samsung.
But the function is actually based on movement, not touch: the headphones can detect the subtle vibrations caused by blows to the ears. I usually use it by tapping my index finger on the backs of the ears, away from the buds themselves, but a double tap on the tragus (the small fleshy part that partially covers the opening of the ear) works just as well. . The latter may be what Samsung is trying to show in its illustration, but I don’t think it’s very clear. The function works very reliably, in my experience; it is rarely accidentally activated, and if you want to drastically change its volume, you can tap repeatedly, quickly, until it’s at the desired level.
All of this will sound like old hat to Samsung fans, but unless you know how to look for it, nothing in the Galaxy Wearable app will push you to try out this great feature. We were pretty excited to see swipe-based volume controls return on the Pixel Buds Pro, but after getting used to Samsung’s tap-based system, I really miss it on any other pair of earphones. If you snag a couple of new Samsung buttons, this is a must try on day one.
Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Pro
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Image source: Samsung.
The Galaxy Buds 2 Pro are Samsung’s smallest, lightest, and best wireless earbuds yet. They improve on the Galaxy Buds Pro in every way, with better sound quality, more comprehensive active noise cancellation, and support for 24-bit audio. They are also IPX7 water and dust resistant.
