Did you know: In a Hangouts video call you can switch to earpiece or Bluetooth Device

I have seen some comments and topics springing up that people are having video calling issues with the new Hangouts app. I took some time last night to make a few calls and play around with the settings and the various features while in a call. There were a number of things that I was very pleased to find. Most importantly, the speaker settings. Finally allowing you to go to your phones earpiece or a Bluetooth headset.

When making the call, tap the speaker and you can switch to earpiece, Bluetooth or wired headset. This gives you a chance to actually be in a hangout call with friends and not be stuck on speaker anymore. Why this is important. In the past all you could do was use the speaker or a wired headset. Now you can turn off the camera, change to the earpiece and still be involved in a conversation without needing to be heard in public or having to skip a hangout because you aren’t by your PC. Killing the camera also kills the strain on your data connection and can also improve the voice quality of your call.

As you can also see, you can easily and quickly bounce between the video call and messaging. Simply hit the message icon at the top right. Not to mention around your device and just pull down the notification bar to go back to the video call. This might not be all that amazing to many people since the whole point is to have face to face interactions, but I am sure that many of you just want to talk at times and don’t need to hold your phone at just the right distance to hear, talk and be seen.