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Classic-Rando
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

Controller microphone

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Edit, I want to make it clear that I am talking about Stadia on the Chromecast Ultra, I could use my OnePlus 8 pro, but that would just be insane when I have 2 CCUs plugged into a 43 inch TV in the bedroom and a 55 in my front room, both with very good sounding Dolby Atmos speakers. 

 

I just hit what I would call the first major problem with Stadia. 

I was invited to join a party, thought I'd chat with some fellow gamers and accepted the invite. 

I remember reading back in January that you'd eventually be able to use the in built mic or a wireless headset for party chat, so I quickly checked, and found that I needed a 3.5mm headset to use the mic, this is a problem for 2 reasons. 

1, I don't own a wired headset 

2, Far more importantly, I didn't pay over £1000 on a soundbar to play games on a headset.

 

I'm now left with 3 options.

1, Simply forget about voice chat (not an option) 

2, Buy a £5 headset with terrible sound (also not an option) 

3, Buy a decent wired headset, that will only be used for Stadia (this is an obscene waste of money, I already bought the Jaybird Tarah Pros, and the echo buds, both of which have excellent sound quality)

 

What we need is option 4!

Use the headset jack for mic only, and let us chose the sound output. 

 

If I'm wrong in any way, or have incorrect / out of date info, please correct me. 

 

Come on Google, make Stadia the benchmark for the future of gaming, and get rid of bugs like this! 

 

Add me ClassicRando#6222 

15 Kudos
Best Response
ChrisFromGoogle
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey all, thanks for the great discussion. This is valuable feedback. Please make sure to submit this feedback through the Stadia app! The team reviews every submission.

View Best Response in original post

6 Kudos
22 Replies
TheBak3r
Founder
Founder

I play PUBG and the built-in mic works just fine. I use regular headphones for listening.

1 Kudo
Classic-Rando
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

You're missing the point, I just want to be able to put a mic in the controller, and still listen to the audio from my outrageously expensive soundbar and satellite speakers. 

 

I occasionally binge game for a whole weekend when I play Ark on my PC, there will come a time when I spend 20+ hours on Google Stadia, with the need for voice chat, and even the very comfortable looking Sennheiser headset I just bought will both become extremely uncomfortable and (even though are a very nice headset) will not sound as good as my normal setup in either room I use.

 

Stadia need to give us the option to chose our audio output, or the ability to just use a 3.5mm jack mic with no headset, without cancelling out the audio from my soundbar and speakers.

 

At this rate people will just use discord, and the party chat feature will remain largely underused.

 

@StadiaTeam, I love your platform, you have a fan already, but the lack of chat functionality is frustrating to say the least, we need a discord style chat and voice function, or just discord integration.

3 Kudos
TheBak3r
Founder
Founder

Gotcha... Didn't realize the built-in mic gets turned off if headphones are not connected to the controller. I only play at night and playing games loud isn't an option for me, 

0 Kudos
Oryescent
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

Wow, this is kind of ironic. Like what if somebody wants to use their new Pixel Buds with Stadia but they can't because the microphone is disabled or incompatible. I hope this gets fixed soon. Hehe

2 Kudos
LokiBrot
Community Member

I didn't pay over £1000 on a soundbar to play games on a headset

No matter how good your soundbar is, not using a headset or at least headphones while in voice chat with others is still a not-very-nice move. Your microphone will pick up game sound and echo it back to your mates. Your microphone will pick up the voices of your mates and potentially cause painful feedbacks. Sure, these things can be countered software-wise, but only to a certain point.

There's always the one person on the teamspeak/discord who does not know/care about this and must be muted.

So sorry, but if you want to be a nice person (I think the buzzword for it that got invented during COVID-19 is "chat hygiene"), don't use your soundbar, use headphones in combination with the controller mic or use a headset, otherwise you're going to be a massive PITA for your teammates.

4 Kudos
Classic-Rando
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

There's always been press to talk, I've had maybe 20 years, since the invention of Teamspeak etc, using some form of group chat, I've never once had any complaints about my "chat etiquette". I'm envisioning the Google assistant button will eventually be used to create a similar function for Stadia (this is something that came through as an obvious thing to do back before the Stadia release, when all we has was a few pictures and some speculation).

 

Soung quality and game etiquette aside, if I binge play for more than a few hours (and in the past I pulled a 3 day Ark session (please do not try this at home kids)), even the most comfortable cans feel like you have a pair of knives strapped to your head. 

0 Kudos
TheWelshIdiot
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

@Classic-Rando 

"What we need is option 4!

Use the headset jack for mic only, and let us chose the sound output".

<----  This.  100 times this.

3 Kudos
LokiBrot
Community Member

@Classic-Rando You're right about the pair of knives. 

Still, I stick to my point. Even with push-to-talk, If you're playing an FPS and want to communicate with your teammates while in an engagement, your teammates will not only hear your voice, but also all the noise from the engagement you are in at that moment (Gunshots, Explosions...). It will be added to the noises of their own encounter that they might be in at the time. It will be confusing/distracting/whatever.

So while I think you're right and PTT is definitely better than voice activation, I think that it's still just an emergency solution when no headset is available.

0 Kudos
Classic-Rando
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

@LokiBrot

IIf I'm playing a FPS where every second matters, I'd obviously wear a headset. 

I'm thinking more along the lines of ESO and other games where you can spend hours, or even days in a party with someone else and the need to talk to each other. 

 

This is a stupid thing to debate anyway, if Stadia just give us the option of using a mic with push to talk and select our audio out, it needn't be one or the other. You could use a headset where appropriate, and a mic with push to talk where appropriate. 

 

It's currently a problem, one that is putting a lot of people off the Stadia platform (I spent several hours last night discussing this, and most people who were interested in Stadia, said this would be a dealbreaker.), and it's a problem that doesn't need to exist, if Google doesn't want to change the chat functionality, or the way the controller and headset works, they could just add discord (or any chat platform) integration.

 

1 Kudo
LokiBrot
Community Member

Agreed. It is a stupid discussion, and I'm mainly keeping it alive because I'm procrastinating right now. There are usecases where not using a headset is perfectly fine and there are usecases where it's at least beneficial to use a headset.

But the decision on what to use should be left to the user, not dictated by the provider. So yes, I, too, think that this is a missing feature. Would not call it a bug, though, unless it was intended to work and is currently malfunctioning.

3 Kudos
ChrisFromGoogle
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey all, thanks for the great discussion. This is valuable feedback. Please make sure to submit this feedback through the Stadia app! The team reviews every submission.

6 Kudos
Classic-Rando
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

Hi Chris, like your discord posts.
So how do I submit this feedback/thread through the app for review?

 

Edit, a bit of further input, I bought a pair of Sennheiser GSP 500s, and at full volume they are still very quiet, I maxed the volume of the Chromecast, the stadia app, and then it advised me to max the TV volume (which obviously wasn't coming out at the time), and it was still very quiet. 

2 Kudos
Babaganuche7
Founder
Founder

Have you tested the headphones elsewhere?

1 Kudo
Classic-Rando
Stadia Player
Stadia Player
Yes on my PC, they're fine, deep bass, good midrange and crisp highs, volume goes up to eardrum hurting levels.
1 Kudo
Deleted User
Not applicable

To submit feedback, just tap your avatar top-right in the app and scroll down, there's a Feedback button.

3 Kudos
Atomic_Virus
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

I would like for them to add the audio option as well. I like to hear the sound come out of the surround sound instead of headphones and still be able to use the mic.

 

1 Kudo
Shadow5212
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

Were you able to find a work around for this?

My kids want to be able to talk to people but I'd like to be able to hear what people are saying to them as we often play as a family.

Is there any hardware I can get to allow me to plug a mic into the controller, but have the audio come through my TV or a Bluetooth speaker? 

1 Kudo
Classic-Rando
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

No, even though this debate goes back 10 months, and was flagged by an admin as "valuable feedback", nothing, unfortunately, has been done,. 

1 Kudo
Ideation
Community Member

Push!

Definitely feels like a simple small add-on to existing google hardware. Let's prioritize this one @StadiaTeam

Thank you!

1 Kudo
Eg00rB
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

How about if you make or buy a 3.5mm headphone jack splitter and connect the input wires to an external microphone and the output wires to your sound system? Or maybe to a Bluetooth transmitter if you want to be wireless? Sounds like a hardware project to me!

0 Kudos
Shadow5212
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

I ended up trying this a while ago with a Bluetooth transmitter, but even with the Bluetooth speaker turned all the way up and volume up on Chromecast, it wasn't loud enough to hear - it was like the controller was limiting the volume. 

The Bluetooth transmitter was an unpowered one, maybe having a powered one would help, but then you may as well go down the wired route and run a long 3mm jack lead to a speaker. 

0 Kudos
JamesFromGoogle
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hello everyone,
Just wanted to pop in and thank everyone for their responses here, but also point out that this is an older topic. With that said, we will be closing this conversation now. If you do have any follow up questions or still need help, please feel free to create a new post.

Thank you,
James

0 Kudos