How to pair your Galaxy Buds 2
To pair your Buds 2 to your Android phone, place the Buds 2 case (with the buds inside it) next to your phone. Open the lid and wait a second or two. A prompt will show up on your phone letting you know it has found the earbuds and ask if you want to connect them to your phone. Tap Connect and then follow the rest of the prompts, which likely includes downloading a Buds 2 plug-in for the Wearable app.
If you don't see the prompt, you can either close the case for a second or two and try again or manually pair the Buds 2 to your phone. To do that, open the Wearable app and then select Add new device and then follow the prompts. Either method works and is impressively quick.
Use the touchpads on the side of each earbud to control playback.
Drew Evans/CNETGet to know the Buds 2 touch controls
There's a giant touchpad on each earbud that you can use to play or pause music, skip tracks or change listening modes without having to use the Wearable app.
You can turn off touch controls altogether in the Wearable app if you want, but I find them useful, and I'm sure after using them for a few days you will too. Here are the basic controls you can use:
Tap: Play/Pause Double-tap: Play next track Triple-tap: Play previous track Touch and hold: Switch between active noise canceling and ambient sound
To turn any of the touch controls on or off, or to customize the touch and hold gesture, open the Wearable app and select Touch Controls.
Adjust active noise cancellation and ambient sound mode
The Buds 2 are some of the cheapest wireless earbuds to offer both active noise cancellation and an ambient sound mode. ANC comes in handy when you're working in a noisy environment and want to focus on the task at hand. Ambient sound mode is nearly the exact opposite of ANC -- when in use, you can still listen to music, but the earbuds will let in some of the background noise. I've personally used this kind of mode when ridging a bike on a street so I can hear as cars approach, or when in an airport and I'm waiting for boarding instructions.
You can switch between ANC and ambient with a long press on either earbud, or you can open the Wearable app to make the change. When you use the app you're given extra control over ambient sound mode. To test it out, open the Wearable app on your phone and select Ambient sound from the Noise controls section. Once selected, you'll see a slider show up underneath the controls -- that slider makes it possible to control how much ambient sound is let through.