Anyone who relies on wireless earbuds for daily calls knows the frustration of being drowned out by background noise. Samsung says it has tackled this head-on with the new Galaxy Buds4 Pro, building in technology specifically designed to keep a user’s voice clear and audible, however noisy the surroundings.
The company explained that earbud microphones sit much farther from the mouth than a smartphone’s, leaving them more susceptible to ambient noise. To address this, Samsung has incorporated what it calls Sensor Fusion technology into the Galaxy Buds4 Pro, combining inputs from multiple sensors rather than relying on a single microphone.
The earbuds use three microphones in total. Two external microphones capture voice directly, while a third internal microphone picks up speech transmitted through the body. A Voice Pickup Unit, working through bone conduction, also detects vibrations in the head when a person speaks. This combined data feeds into a noise reduction algorithm designed to separate and reconstruct the user’s voice from surrounding sound.
At the core of this system is a Deep Neural Network, an AI processing method loosely based on how the human brain works. Samsung said it optimised the algorithm for on-device use, lowering the computational load to around 10 per cent of the original requirement and reducing the model size to 30 per cent, allowing the processing to run within the earbuds rather than needing external computing power.
According to Samsung, the algorithm draws on past, present and predictive sound data to adjust to changing environments in real time. It has also been upgraded to capture sixteen times more vocal detail than previous models, covering higher-pitched tones, consonants and word endings. The earbuds further account for fit leakage, which occurs when movement causes them to shift slightly and let in background noise. The system analyses signals from the inner and outer microphones to estimate this leakage and adjust audio output accordingly.
Samsung said call quality improves further when the Galaxy Buds4 Pro are paired with a Galaxy smartphone, which can support a Super Wideband connection of up to 16kHz. To test the system, Samsung used wind simulators in laboratory conditions designed to mimic real-world acoustic recordings, alongside field tests in settings including cafes, department stores, train stations, outdoor night-time environments and cars travelling with windows open.