Unless you pull some tricks, Windows generally only works with one audio output at a time—which is a bummer if you’re trying to share a song or video and you don’t want to look like two 2010s teen girls sharing a single set of wired Apple earbuds. The latest Windows 11 update could fix this, at least if you have compatible hardware.
So sayeth the Windows Insider blog, which announced that the Shared Audio feature is now in Windows Insider Preview Build 26220.7051. You can access Shared Audio if you connect two Bluetooth audio devices at once and click the relevant tile in the quick settings menu.
Microsoft
Here’s the bad news: both the audio devices and your Windows hardware need to be compatible with specific implementations of Bluetooth LE. That’s most of the Bluetooth headphones released in the last few years, but apparently whatever special sauce is on the Windows hardware side is very selective. Microsoft listed only the latest Snapdragon-powered Surface laptops and tablets in its initial availability, as well as the Qualcomm-powered Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge. Other Galaxy Book5 models—all with Intel Core Ultra 200 processors—will be added in a later update.
It seems like you need some cutting-edge Bluetooth drivers in order to enable this functionality, and it’s being rolled out slowly via Windows Update. The listed laptops are a pretty small chunk of the hardware that should be compatible, even if you stick to devices using Snapdragon processors. Hopefully the capability will be a little more accessible by the time it hits the general Windows update.