Google Pixel News, Issues: Faulty Microphones Found on Several Units
Recently, Google recognized that several units of the Pixel smartphone have faulty microphones, and affected devices need to be sent back for replacement.
Back in October 2016, a Google Pixel owner named Joseph sent a report to the company, telling them of his experience. Shortly after the unit was received, its microphone stopped working except when it was being used to record a video. Unfortunately, not even a factory reset was able to fix the issue.
In Joseph's report, he attached a Reddit link where another Google Pixel owner reported having the same faulty microphone experience. If people are to check the Reddit thread, it can be seen that a Community Manager replied to the post and said that at the time, they were still tracking the said issue.
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Back to Joseph's report, Google's vice president for product management, Brian Rakowski, replied just recently to summarize the issue and gave the company's explanation for it, while emphasizing that the faulty microphone is not caused by a software bug but is definitely a "hardware issue."
In another recent reply to the report thread, Rakowski reiterated that there are "problems with one or more of the three microphones on the Pixel and Pixel XL. There are a few known root causes, resulting in similar but different symptoms."
He further explained: "The most common problem is a hairline crack in the solder connection on the audio codec. This will affect all three mics and may result in other issues with audio processing."
Rakowski also mentioned that Google is taking the time to make sure that phones manufactured in January do not have the said hardware issue. Meanwhile, he also emphasized that among the phones created before 2017, the number of units affected is less than 1 percent.
Rakowski added that they are taking more time and measures "to qualify refurbished phones to make sure they don't have this mic problem. It's possible that some replacement phones were not properly qualified before we understood this issue, but that's no longer the case."
