Clubhouse Spatial Audio Feature Launched, Rolling Out To iOS Users First

Last Updated on August 30, 2021 by Asif Iqbal Shaik

The audio-only chat app, Clubhouse, seems to be on a spree of adding new features. Clubhouse has now announced the launch of the Spatial Audio feature in its app. The company said in a blog post that it wants you to hear the sound of people in 3D which will make the listening experience a bit more lifelike and human. The Spatial Audio feature on the Clubhouse app will first be available to iOS users. Android users would have to wait to experience the new feature. The new surround sound feature will offer a more vibrant experience and will actually make it easier for the listener to know who is talking.

If you want to experience the Spatial Audio on Clubhouse, make sure that you are using the latest version of the app. The Spatial Audio will work best with headphones (wired or wireless). Those who are using the Apple AirPods Max and the AirPods series earbuds should get the best Spatial Audio experience. Clubhouse competes with Twitter Spaces and Spotify Greenroom.

In a piece of related news, we had also seen Netflix bringing support for Apple’s Spatial Audio feature for iOS and iPadOS.

Depending on how many speakers are in a Clubhouse Room, the app’s technology will assign users a spatial positioning so that the listener will hear the voices surround them in their headphones, said Justin Uberti, Clubhouse’s head of streaming technology. In comedy rooms, for instance, Clubhouse’s technology will detect the main speaker and place that person’s voice in the front, while the laughter of other people could sound as if they’re coming from a listener’s left and right sides.

“I could hear people laughing and the room erupts around me. You can imagine in music … there’s a lot of potential. The spatial technology also makes it easier to detect when different users are speaking, whereas people previously might have to pay attention to the speakers’ cadence and vocal timbre.”

– Justin Uberti, Head of Streaming Technology, Clubhouse

Clubhouse now has more than 700,000 thousand rooms per day (compared to 300,000 in May 2021). As of now, Clubhouse has not mentioned any date as to when the Spatial Audio feature will be released for Android device users. The company mentions that Spatial Audio started rolling to all iOS users starting Sunday.