Google's new ‘Tap to Cast’ feature for Pixel Tablet and phones to arrive later this year [Demo video]

Later this year, Google is working to roll out a ‘Tap to Cast’ feature that will allow you to ‘move’ music playback between compatible Pixel phones and the Pixel Tablet.

The new ‘Tap to Cast’ feature will take advantage of the UWB (ultra-wideband) hardware present on some Pixel devices to send the ongoing music playback from phones to a nearby docked Pixel tablet (and vice versa). The phones compatible with the system will be the following:

• Pixel 6 Pro
• Pixel 7 Pro
• Pixel 8 Pro
• Pixel Fold

‘Cast to devices nearby’ is the official name of the feature, and it will be available first in the YouTube Music and Spotify apps. Once you have it, you will get a pill-shaped notification when there are compatible devices close, from which you can also stop or cancel the process.

Google claims that developers will be able to easily implement the ‘Tap to Cast’ feature without additional work. They just have to integrate the Output Switcher SDK into their apps for everything to work correctly. Android expert Mishaal Rahman shared a short video showing how it works:

‘Tap to Cast’ is one of the results of Google’s ‘Cross device SDK’, which is designed to ‘determine the proximity and presence of devices as part of multi-device experiences’. It takes advantage of the UWB hardware present in some modern Pixel devices, which is currently only used for Nearby Share (improving accuracy) and digital car keys detection.

According to Google, the device detection system consists of 3 layers:

• ‘Recognize what devices are physically close by, with wireless technologies like Bluetooth Low Energy, Wi-Fi, and ultra-wideband (UWB).’
• ‘Nearby device discovery and context-aware capabilities that identify which device you may want to use based on your current activity.’
• ‘Understand and adjust actions based on how you interact with your devices with cross-device intelligence.’

It will be interesting to see what other types of related features or functions will arrive next. The seamless interconnection between multiple devices seems to be one of the key points that the company is working on for the future of Android. Lastly, ‘Tap to Cast’ could be available later this year on eligible Pixel devices.