- Eclipsa Audio is a Dolby Atmos rival to Samsung and Google
- It’s in Samsung TVs and soundbars in 2025, Chrome and YouTube
- But it’s not in Samsung’s headphones or phones yet…
Imagine you’ve created an incredible new platform for audio, and you want the world to use it. And imagine you also have the eyes of the world on you because you’re launching one of the world’s most desirable smartphones. Would you like to:
(a) Use the phone launch to promote your amazing new audio?
or (b) not do that?
Surprisingly, Samsung chose (b) for its Samsung Galaxy S25 launch. We really thought we’d see (and hear) support for Eclipsa Audio, Samsung and Google’s Dolby Atmos rival. But no. And it’s really weird.
A total eclipse
This is really weird because we know Eclipsa is coming to Android. It’s in an upcoming release of the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). But software support is only part of what you need to launch a new format. You also need people to know about it, and most importantly you need people to be excited about it. And the best way to do that is to let people listen to it.
The Samsung Galaxy S25 launch would have been a great opportunity to at least get the Choo-choo hype train started – and Samsung has already started talking about Eclipsa in its other products, as it’s coming to its soundbars and TVs in 2025. But the Android audio market is potentially much bigger than the soundbar market, and there’s still no sign of Eclipsa arriving.
You could say – and I’m sorry for what I’m about to type – that there has been a total Eclipsa so far.
We really thought Samsung would use the unboxed event to talk about Eclipsa and announce an update for the Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro to support it, since you Also need something to listen to.
I suspect one of the reasons Samsung hasn’t is that there isn’t much to listen to that uses the format. There is no support on top streaming services, other than YouTube in the future.
As my colleague Matt Bolton wrote earlier this month, even though Samsung had announced Eclipsa audio support, it still needs more: “Samsung’s support won’t be enough of the momentum for Eclipsa – it needs to really getting the hottest earphone makers for every budget for every budget On board to make this feel like a must-have feature.”
But in the world of phones and headphones right now, Eclipsa doesn’t even seem to have Samsung (or Google, for that matter). At least not yet. Perhaps the inevitable August Samsung unboxed will see the planets align for Eclipsa.
