Acoustic echo cancellation

What is echo cancellation in video conferencing?

In video conferencing, an echo is a problem that results in distorted audio. This can happen for various reasons and shows up in different ways:

• Acoustic echo: This is when the person speaking hears their own voice back due to a problem with echoing from another person's device.

• Howling echo: A specific type of acoustic echo, howling echo happens when audio is recorded by a microphone and immediately played back by a speaker close to the microphone. For instance, when you join a meeting with two devices close to each other, this causes a loud screeching noise.

• Reverberation: While technically not an echo, reverberation is sometimes called 'room echo'. This is the muddied repetition of the original sound that you hear when speaking in empty rooms. The speaker's voice reflects off the walls and comes back as reverberation.

Nothing derails a meeting like poor sound quality. For this reason, acoustic echo cancellers (AECs) are always integrated into devices and applications to filter and remove annoying echoes on video calls. This smart technology prioritises human voices and blocks out unwanted noise for distraction-free conversations.

Echo cancellation in Google Meet

Google Meet features sophisticated echo cancellation capabilities to minimise disruptive feedback. Google seamlessly integrates an advanced echo canceller with Chrome and Meet to mitigate this problem. Because AECs can occasionally malfunction, Meet supplements device-based technology by detecting these instances and automatically reconfigures devices to resolve the issue. Meet boosts built-in AECs with alternative echo cancellation methods for clear, uninterrupted voice and video calls.

Adaptive audio turns any space into a hybrid meeting room

In hybrid work, it can often be difficult to find a video conference room to join a call. But with adaptive audio in Meet, teams can use their laptops in any available space to join a call without worrying about audio feedback, distortion and howling echoes resulting from laptops being in close proximity.

Adaptive audio automatically detects multiple laptops in the same room and synchronises all microphones and speakers. It merges the audio to ensure clear transmission of sound from all laptop speakers, and intelligently switches between microphones as participants speak to prevent feedback and echo. Meet also uses backend processing to enhance audio quality, removing background noise before transmitting audio to other participants.

Adaptive audio in Meet provides a cost-effective solution to create ad-hoc meeting spaces for smaller organisations short on budget or larger organisations short on space. Adaptive audio in Meet is available in certain Google Workspace plans.