Samsung Galaxy Buds software update gifts them three Buds+ features

Samsung Galaxy Buds software update gifts them three Buds+ features
(Image credit: Samsung)

Samsung has announced it is bringing new features to its original Galaxy Buds true wireless earbuds through a software update available today. The update grants Galaxy Buds owners access to three features found in the newer Galaxy Buds+ model.

Firstly, and most crucially, Galaxy Buds owners can now experience Ambient Sound, giving them the option to momentarily hear their surroundings (a train announcement, for example) while still listening to music. Ambient Sound can be activated even when only one earbud is in. To clarify: there's no noise cancellation onboard, just the added option of amplifying your external surroundings. 

Secondly, Galaxy Buds owners can now use the Microsoft Swift Pair feature for easier pairing of the Buds to a Windows 10 PC. And lastly, Buds owners can now listen to a personalised Spotify playlist with a single tap-and-hold gesture, which will launch Spotify and start playing music wherever they left off. Not feeling the song? Tap and hold again and Spotify will recommend playlists just for you.

Through its latest software update, Samsung is essentially bringing the original Buds more in-line with the newer, pricier Buds+ in terms of software.

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Becky has been a full-time staff writer at What Hi-Fi? since March 2019. Prior to gaining her MA in Journalism in 2018, she freelanced as an arts critic alongside a 20-year career as a professional dancer and aerialist – any love of dance is of course tethered to a love of music. Becky has previously contributed to Stuff, FourFourTwo, This is Cabaret and The Stage. When not writing, she dances, spins in the air, drinks coffee, watches football or surfs in Cornwall with her other half – a football writer whose talent knows no bounds.