- Android 15 will add a new feature that can automatically turn on Bluetooth the day after you’ve disabled it.
- Your phone’s Bluetooth radio is used for several key Android features, such as Quick Share and Find My Device.
- Disabling Bluetooth will slightly improve battery, but the trade-off is that your device won’t be able to contribute to Google’s Find My Device network.
Google is finally set to launch its long-awaited Find My Device network in the next couple days. Potentially billions of Android devices will start pinging each other via Bluetooth, creating a massive lost device tracking network that’s on par with or even bigger than Apple’s Find My network. How it works is that participating devices will use Bluetooth to broadcast a beacon that other nearby devices can receive. The broadcasting device’s location is then encrypted by receiving devices and uploaded to Google’s server so that only the owner of the broadcasting device can see its location.
Bluetooth is an absolutely core component of Google’s Find My Device network, so if users who opt into the network disable their device’s Bluetooth radio, the Find My Device network won’t work as intended. Disabling your device’s Bluetooth radio means that not only will your own device be unreachable on the Find My Device network should it lose access to data, but it also means that you won’t be helping other people find their lost devices. Recognizing this dilemma, Google is working on a new feature in Android 15 that essentially lets users pause instead of disable their device’s Bluetooth radio.