Out of the box it can play audio in the background, and now that extensions are available you can block ads as well. You don’t really need constantly updating 3rd party clients or questionable firewalls anymore if you just want usable youtube on a phone.
I did use that for a while. Google was always finding ways to break it. I don’t use youtube on my phone often and when I had newpipe 9/10 times it was broken when I wanted to use it, so it didn’t make it onto my next phone.
Have you tried revanced? I greatly enjoy it and haven’t had it break on me once. Of course it’s android only, but I think newpipe is too
I also have a Pixel but never had a problem that wasn’t promptly fixed.