How to Enable Separate App Sound on the Galaxy S9

Samsung has a unique feature in the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ that lets you play the audio of an application on a different Bluetooth device. This feature is actually quite convenient for those who always listen to music or watch videos in a certain situation.

Most smartphones these days come with the same hardware as other devices on the market in the same price bracket. For instance virtually all of the flagship smartphones from 2018 will be using the Snapdragon 845 SoC and they will all be equipped with 4GB to 8GB of RAM. We’re even getting to the point where a lot of these devices even look the same and this is becoming especially true with the shift to slim bezels and the notch at the top. It’s this reason why the software on our smartphones are becoming increasingly important.

The casual customer may thing that the software will be the same across Android devices even if the UI looks a bit different.

This isn’t the case though as some companies choose to keep things clean and optimized while others feel they need to throw in every single feature under the sun. Samsung is well known for this and many people will say their software is incredibly bloated. Having a lot of features isn’t bad in and of itself but it can be an issue if those features actually slow down the performance of the device.

This used to be the case with Samsung and still might be to a small degree, but they’ve been better lately for the most part. However, these extra features are big selling points for a lot of people and today I want to show you one of these unique features that Samsung calls Separate App Sound.

Galaxy S9 Separate App Sound Tutorial

1. Open up the Settings application
2. Tap the Sounds and Vibration option
3. Scroll all the way down to the bottom
4. And tap on the Separate App Sound option
5. Tap the App option and choose the media application
6. Then tap the Audio Device option and choose your external Bluetooth device
7. Finally, you can tap the toggle at the top to enable the feature

Explanation

This is one of those features that sounds very clever as it is something that can actually be incredibly convenient for a lot of people. However, it’s one of those features that can be difficult to explain too so it’s not something that everyone is aware of. So, let’s talk about the situations in which this feature can be useful. Let’s say you use your smartphone for a lot of things like watching YouTube videos, news clips in the browser, some mobile games and then a music streaming service like Spotify or YouTube Music.

It makes sense to have things like YouTube videos, videos in the browser and even mobile games playing the audio through the dedicated Galaxy S9 speakers. These play sessions don’t generally last a long time and it can be a pain to pull out some headphones or a Bluetooth headset just to watch a 15 second YouTube video. However, when you load up your music streaming playlist you always listen to it in the car, while doing yard work, or doing regular exercise routines. Normally you would then need to tell Android to switch the audio destination from the speakers to your headset.

This isn’t the case anymore with the Galaxy S9 Separate App Sound feature as you can set this stuff up ahead of time. To do this you will need to have your audio device connected and then open up the Settings application. Go into the Sounds and Vibration option and then scroll all the way down to the bottom. From here you will see the Separate App Sound option and it’s here that you will set everything up. So you’ll need to pick an application you want to use it for (such as Spotify, YouTube, Pandora, etc.).

Then you will need to set a specific audio device that you want this audio to be played on. So if we’re playing Spotify each time we get in our car then we tell this to the Galaxy S9 or Galaxy S9+ and it will remember this for us. Then once the toggle is turned on you will never get into your car and hear Spotify playing through the phone’s speakers because you forgot to change the default audio destination. You can use this feature for a lot of other situations though as it’s just a great way to isolate the audio from one application onto a specific device.

This can even be reversed too if you always listen to the audio on a connected Bluetooth device but you don’t want that device used when you watch a YouTube video. Just set it up so the audio destination is the phone and it will remember that for you.