Your Pixel Watch may let you change your phone’s media output

Pixel Watch devices could get an option to change the media output of your Android phone. The possible feature was just recently spotted in Android 15 and its current state is far from functional. However, it could make the use of your smartwatch even more practical.

According to Mishaal Rahman’s report, the function could be possible thanks to a new “MEDIA_ROUTING_CONTROL” permission that smartwatch companion apps can access. These types of apps are usually necessary to properly set up your new device. For example, “Wear OS” is a companion app used by multiple third-party wearables powered by Google OS. “Watch” is the companion app for the company’s own watches. There are also third-party brands that use their own companion apps, such as Samsung Galaxy Wearable.

Basically, the companion app facilitates the sync process with your Google account data. This prevents you from having to jump between apps to give the necessary permissions to each one. It will simply ask you for all the necessary key permissions in one place. This includes permission to access data such as notifications, calls, SMS, calendar, etc.

You could change your phone’s media output from your Pixel Watch in Android 15

Now, Google could integrate a new “MEDIA_ROUTING_CONTROL” permission in Android 15 for Wear OS companion apps. This will allow companion apps to identify devices compatible with audio and video streaming. The function that will use this permission is “Change media output” and you can find it in Settings > Apps > Special app access.

Its description says that it “allows [an] app to choose which connected device plays audio or video from other apps. If allowed, this app can access a list of available devices such as headphones and speakers and choose which output device is used to stream or cast audio or video.” So basically, it is designed to manage your phone’s media output from your Pixel Watch.

It is not yet known when it will be implemented

It’s noteworthy that the implementation of the feature in Android 15 is not 100% guaranteed. Also, it is not known if it will be exclusive to Pixel Watches. It would be quite useful for all Wear OS devices to receive it. For now, the OS code only includes references in the form of strings and descriptions. It will probably take a few weeks or months to see it working for the first time.