March 21, 2018 • 4 mins
Testing out the real time foreign language translation feature on Google Pixel Buds headphones.Follow Rich on Social Media:Facebook: http://facebook.com/RichOnTechTwitter: http://twitter.com/richdemuroInstagram: http://instagram.com/richontechNEW! You can add the Rich on Tech Daily Update to your Alexa Flash Briefing! Just search for the "Rich on Tech" skill in your Alexa app and add it to your briefing! You'll get a daily dose of tech news each day and a longer show on the weekends!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Testing real time translation on Google Pixel Buds. I'm Rich Demiro.
This is Rich on Tech Daily. Google Pixel Buds are
basically a set of wireless headphones, kind of the company's
answer to Apple's AirPods. Now, these wireless headphones connect best
with Google's own Pixel smartphone, but they will work with
other Bluetooth devices as well. Now, the main feature is
(00:25):
Google Assistant. That means you can use all of their
amazing voice commands to do stuff like play music, send
text messages, control your wraps, whatever you need to do.
But there is a cool futuristic feature and this is
real time foreign language translation. Now this feature only works
on a Pixel original phone or a Pixel two. So
(00:46):
before we get into how that all works, let me
give you some thoughts on the Pixel buds. So I
really wanted to love these because you know they're from Google.
They have the Google Assistant built in, and Google is
just killing it with Google Assistant. They have made this
thing so good. You can really do so much stuff
with the Google Assistant. It interfaces with many different apps, podcasts, news, weather, sports,
(01:09):
controlling things like text messages, calling people, whatever you want.
But these earbuds have been kind of rough since the start.
So when I first tried them out, you know, you're
supposed to be able to open the case and have
them instantly pair to your phone. That didn't really go
so well. So I kept trying this feature over and over.
I maybe got it to work. I don't know ten
twenty percent of the time, so you can, you know,
(01:31):
pair them manually, but that's not the idea. The idea
is that you're supposed to open up the case, they
pair with your phone, and you're done. Then it came
to putting them back in the case and wrapping the
cord back into the case, because even though these are
wireless earbuds, there's still a chord that connects the two
of them that goes kind of behind your head. Getting
this thing back in the case is really tricky. I
had to search online for an animation on how to
(01:52):
do just that figured out the way to do it,
and once you figured it out, it is pretty simple.
But it's just that funny thing of like, Okay, what
am I doing wrong here? When it comes to design
and quality, I have no problems there. I think that
the design is really nice. They definitely fall out of
my ears a little bit more than some other headphones do.
But when it comes to the audio quality, I think
they sound really good and they're nicely made. Keep in
(02:14):
mind these are one hundred and sixty dollars headphones, which
is the same price as Apple AirPods. Now those are
kind of a joy to use. I mean I love
them since day one. They stay in my ears. They
don't sound the best, but they sound fine, and they
work with an Android device. But of course they are
better on Apple because you get Siri. All right, let's
talk about the translation feature. So first off, you have
(02:35):
to download the Google Translate app. Then you basically ask
the buds to help you translate. Now, Google has a
few suggested ways of getting that to happen, where basically
you say, hey, Google, help me translate Japanese. The Google
Translate app is supposed to spring into action. That didn't
really happen. It took me a few tries to get
it just right. But once you get it right, it
(02:56):
all works. You tap the right earbud and then you
talk and you your translation happening in real time on
the screen on your phone, which is really cool. Then
your phone speaks it out loud, so the other person
that you're talking with in this case it was my
producer Vanessa. They can hear it spoken in their language,
and then that person talks back in their language. Your
(03:17):
phone hears it. It's translated on screen into English or
whatever language you want, and then it's also spoken to
you inside your earbuds. So this is really cool and
it does work. It's basically real time language translation back
and forth and again we tried it with producer Vanessa.
She said the translations were just okay. Someone would understand
the gist of what you're saying, but they weren't always perfect.
(03:38):
But when it comes to using this in the real world,
I think it would be kind of cumbersome because you're
going through the headphones, you're going through your phone. The
person probably can't hear what's coming out of your phone
if you're on a busy street. So I think in
a perfect sense this sort of works, But in reality,
this is just kind of the beginning of a feature
like this, And although the translation happens in real time,
it's kind of a process to go back and forth
(03:59):
this way because you are kind of waiting for things
to happen, stopping waiting for the phone to say what
you just set out loud in a different language, but
the on screen translation happens really fast and it is
really slick. Now. I want to love these headphones, and
I love that Google continues to push the envelope with
cool features like this, but I don't think that this
is ready for primetime. It's definitely not the reason to
(04:19):
purchase the pixel Buds. I think you can skip them
all together. Just grab the Google Translate app, which is
free for Android and iOS, put it into conversation mode,
and it pretty much accomplishes the same exact thing, no
headphones necessary. Thanks so much for listening. If you want
to watch the TV segment where we try out the
Google Pixel Buds instant translation feature, just find a link
(04:40):
on my website richontech dot tv, and please rate and
review this podcast. If you find it helpful, just go
into Apple Podcasts and leave a rating. That way more
people discover it. I'm rich Dedmiro. Thanks so much for listening.
I'll talk to you real soon.
Testing real time translation on Google Pixel Buds. I'm Rich Demiro.
This is Rich on Tech Daily. Google Pixel Buds are
basically a set of wireless headphones, kind of the company's
answer to Apple's AirPods. Now, these wireless headphones connect best
with Google's own Pixel smartphone, but they will work with
other Bluetooth devices as well. Now, the main feature is
(00:25):
Google Assistant. That means you can use all of their
amazing voice commands to do stuff like play music, send
text messages, control your wraps, whatever you need to do.
But there is a cool futuristic feature and this is
real time foreign language translation. Now this feature only works
on a Pixel original phone or a Pixel two. So
(00:46):
before we get into how that all works, let me
give you some thoughts on the Pixel buds. So I
really wanted to love these because you know they're from Google.
They have the Google Assistant built in, and Google is
just killing it with Google Assistant. They have made this
thing so good. You can really do so much stuff
with the Google Assistant. It interfaces with many different apps, podcasts, news, weather, sports,
(01:09):
controlling things like text messages, calling people, whatever you want.
But these earbuds have been kind of rough since the start.
So when I first tried them out, you know, you're
supposed to be able to open the case and have
them instantly pair to your phone. That didn't really go
so well. So I kept trying this feature over and over.
I maybe got it to work. I don't know ten
twenty percent of the time, so you can, you know,
(01:31):
pair them manually, but that's not the idea. The idea
is that you're supposed to open up the case, they
pair with your phone, and you're done. Then it came
to putting them back in the case and wrapping the
cord back into the case, because even though these are
wireless earbuds, there's still a chord that connects the two
of them that goes kind of behind your head. Getting
this thing back in the case is really tricky. I
had to search online for an animation on how to
(01:52):
do just that figured out the way to do it,
and once you figured it out, it is pretty simple.
But it's just that funny thing of like, Okay, what
am I doing wrong here? When it comes to design
and quality, I have no problems there. I think that
the design is really nice. They definitely fall out of
my ears a little bit more than some other headphones do.
But when it comes to the audio quality, I think
they sound really good and they're nicely made. Keep in
(02:14):
mind these are one hundred and sixty dollars headphones, which
is the same price as Apple AirPods. Now those are
kind of a joy to use. I mean I love
them since day one. They stay in my ears. They
don't sound the best, but they sound fine, and they
work with an Android device. But of course they are
better on Apple because you get Siri. All right, let's
talk about the translation feature. So first off, you have
(02:35):
to download the Google Translate app. Then you basically ask
the buds to help you translate. Now, Google has a
few suggested ways of getting that to happen, where basically
you say, hey, Google, help me translate Japanese. The Google
Translate app is supposed to spring into action. That didn't
really happen. It took me a few tries to get
it just right. But once you get it right, it
(02:56):
all works. You tap the right earbud and then you
talk and you your translation happening in real time on
the screen on your phone, which is really cool. Then
your phone speaks it out loud, so the other person
that you're talking with in this case it was my
producer Vanessa. They can hear it spoken in their language,
and then that person talks back in their language. Your
(03:17):
phone hears it. It's translated on screen into English or
whatever language you want, and then it's also spoken to
you inside your earbuds. So this is really cool and
it does work. It's basically real time language translation back
and forth and again we tried it with producer Vanessa.
She said the translations were just okay. Someone would understand
the gist of what you're saying, but they weren't always perfect.
(03:38):
But when it comes to using this in the real world,
I think it would be kind of cumbersome because you're
going through the headphones, you're going through your phone. The
person probably can't hear what's coming out of your phone
if you're on a busy street. So I think in
a perfect sense this sort of works, But in reality,
this is just kind of the beginning of a feature
like this, And although the translation happens in real time,
it's kind of a process to go back and forth
(03:59):
this way because you are kind of waiting for things
to happen, stopping waiting for the phone to say what
you just set out loud in a different language, but
the on screen translation happens really fast and it is
really slick. Now. I want to love these headphones, and
I love that Google continues to push the envelope with
cool features like this, but I don't think that this
is ready for primetime. It's definitely not the reason to
(04:19):
purchase the pixel Buds. I think you can skip them
all together. Just grab the Google Translate app, which is
free for Android and iOS, put it into conversation mode,
and it pretty much accomplishes the same exact thing, no
headphones necessary. Thanks so much for listening. If you want
to watch the TV segment where we try out the
Google Pixel Buds instant translation feature, just find a link
(04:40):
on my website richontech dot tv, and please rate and
review this podcast. If you find it helpful, just go
into Apple Podcasts and leave a rating. That way more
people discover it. I'm rich Dedmiro. Thanks so much for listening.
I'll talk to you real soon.
Host
Rich DeMuro
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