Google Meet will soon tell you when it thinks you’re creating an echo in calls, Google announced in a blog posting Monday. Right now, it’s hard to know if you’re creating an irritating echo for meeting participants unless they interrupt the meeting to tell you. Google’s new proactive warnings should therefore help minimize everyone’s suffering.
Google says that Meet already controls audio to remove echo. But it can’t account for all remote desktop speaker and mic configurations that result in audio being fed back into the call. The new echo warning appears as both a red dot on the Meet interface as well as a notification and a text alert. Clicking the notification provides steps to fix the echo, which include muting your mic, lowering your speaker volume, or switching to headphones.
Google says that the new echo warnings are rolling out now to Google Workspace and G Suite Basic and Business customers. The rollout will take up to 15 days to complete. The warnings are on by default and don’t require any admin intervention to enable.