Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Netflix expands its spatial audio, number of devices that can download content

Netflix Premium subscribers are getting an enhancement to their service starting today. The streaming company has increased the number of devices that can download content for offline viewing from four to six. It’s also expanding the spatial audio feature it launched in 2022, making spatial audio available on its top 700 titles. The new features are included in the current price of a Premium plan.

Spatial audio on Netflix is similar to Dolby Atmos — it creates a much more immersive, 3D-like audio experience where sounds feel like they’re moving independently of the rest of the soundtrack. However, unlike Dolby Atmos, Netflix’s spatial audio can be experienced on any device that has stereo speakers whether they are Dolby Atmos-capable or not.

Spatial Audio on Netflix.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Netflix says that while the effect should be noticeable on any stereo device, especially when using headphones, the feature has been primarily optimized for laptops and tablets. Some examples of titles that now use Netflix spatial audio include Stranger Things, The Watcher, Wednesday, and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.

Titles that have the feature will display a spatial audio badge on their description pages and in search results. To find titles that use spatial audio, simply type “spatial audio” into the Netflix search bar.

Rishu Arora, director of product management at Netflix says the company will also be adding spatial audio to popular new titles as they’re released, including You, Your Place or Mine, Luther: The Fallen Sun, and Tour de France.

Netflix is available on a wide variety of devices, including streaming media boxes like the Apple TV 4K, smart TVs, smartphones, tablets, and on the web using any modern browser.

Editors' Recommendations

Simon Cohen
Contributing Editor, A/V
Simon Cohen covers a variety of consumer technologies, but has a special interest in audio and video products, like…
Netflix to expand paid password sharing in Q1
Netflix app icon on Apple TV.

If you're still freeloading on someone else's Netflix account, it might soon be time to pay up. Netflix, in its quarterly earnings statement, said today that it plans to expand its "paid sharing" scheme by the end of March 2023.

The gist, for those who haven't run into the changes already, is that one Netflix account is good for one home. But you'll be able to buy additional homes for a few bucks a month — less than it'd cost for a full Netflix account.

Read more
Next-gen Qualcomm chips make wireless earbuds, headphones better for gaming and spatial audio
Qualcomm Snapdragon Sound earbuds and smartphone image.

Qualcomm has revealed its latest audio chips for wireless earbuds and headphones, which will enable head-tracked spatial audio, low-latency for mobile gaming, lossless audio for true CD-quality sound, and compatibility with Bluetooth LE Audio, which is set to replace older Bluetooth standards over the next year or two. The S3 and S5 Gen 2 chips are currently being evaluated by manufacturers and Qualcomm expects we'll see the first products equipped with these chips in the second half of 2023.

The new S3 and S5 chips enable the headphone/earbud/speaker side of Qualcomm's evolving Snapdragon Sound platform, which the company introduced in 2021. Snapdragon Sound isn't a technology -- it's more like a certification of features and performance.  Qualcomm uses the brand to let people know what they can expect when they combine a wireless audio product (like earbuds or headphones) with a smartphone when both products display the Snapdragon Sound emblem. It's also your way of knowing that Qualcomm has independently verified that these features work as expected.

Read more
FaceTime with spatial audio is nothing short of magic
A woman wears AirPods Pro while looking at her iPhone on public transportation.

The use of “magic” to describe tech is overblown, especially when it comes to Apple’s products. But hear me out on this one.

As someone who spends some of every day playing with new tech products, I’m frequently impressed by what I see. However, moments of genuine delight -- those times when I suddenly find myself smiling at something that just happened -- are rare. Still, I had one of those moments this weekend, and I want you to experience it, too.

Read more