Google-Samsung brainchild Eclipsa Audio is part of an upcoming Android update

Audio format intercompatibility is the bane of audiophiles worldwide, with some proprietary standards like Dolby Atmos requiring a licensing fee for distribution. As a result, you do pay for that marginally better audio experience with many of our favorite smart projectors and soundbars. Open-source and royalty-free audio formats are the solution, but there aren’t many good ones out there that can rival the licensed types. Google and Samsung have already partnered to release a new open standard for spatial sound, branded as Eclipsa Audio, and we just got word it is coming to Android phones.

We wouldn’t blame you if you thought Eclipsa Audio popped up out of nowhere. This new standard was first announced in 2023, and Samsung and Google have been working on it for longer, albeit under the more boring abbreviation IAMF, which stands for Immersive Audio Model and Formats. Eclipsa is a new standard for spatial sound that could deliver a more immersive experience using connected audio equipment. So, you’ll feel sound coming from all around, instead of just a two-channel speaker system. Last week, Samsung announced plans to equip all TVs in 2025 with this tech, including soundbar models unveiled at CES this month.

Stepping things up, SamMobile reports that Google recently announced plans to bring Eclipsa to Android devices. The change will be bundled along with an upcoming AOSP update, which will be Android 16 on the stable channel. The company specified that Android devs can use the media3-decoder-iamf module to decode files following the new standard.

Eclipsa Audio creation tools are free as well

Coming to more than just your phone

Since IAMF applied to both audio and MP4 video files, the scope is immense. You could expect an experience rivaling Apple’s Spatial Audio, although Google isn’t making these a claim as tall. There’s no word on head tracking support for the Eclipsa Audio implementation on Android, but surely Samsung and Google could have the feature up their sleeves, just to separate their smartphone-earbud pairings from the other Android OEMs. We are still salty about the quality loss with wired headphone support snatched away from smartphones, but proper spatial audio could be a worthy tradeoff.

In its blog post, Google remained vague, but shared that native support for Eclipsa is on the roadmap for Google Chrome browser, YouTube, several TVs, and soundbars from multiple brands this year. For creators, the details about Eclipsa are available on GitHub, and Google promises to release a free plugin for AVID Pro Tools Digital Audio Workstation later this year.

Interestingly, Google and Samsung are planning a royalty-free licensing model for this new tech. Later this year, a brand licensing program will start, so buyers have some assurance of quality when buying from a manufacturer with Eclipsa on the label. Exciting times lie ahead for audio, but the particulars about the exact implementation remain to be seen, and that fine print will determine how quickly consumers take to Eclipsa Audio.