Re:What Your Bluetooth Devices Reveal About You
by SoftTalker on Monday February 16, 2026 @11:40AM
(#47037132)
I disable bluetooth on my phone, though periodically I find that it's back on.
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Re:What Your Bluetooth Devices Reveal About You
by craftkiller on Monday February 16, 2026 @12:02PM
(#47037416)
I have the opposite experience: GrapheneOS has an option to automatically turn your bluetooth off after a configurable period of not being used. So when I need to use bluetooth, I turn it on like normal. Then, without thinking about it, it automatically turns off. The end result is my bluetooth is only ever on for a couple hours each month when I'm making phone calls.
Re:What Your Bluetooth Devices Reveal About You
by littlecorner on Monday February 16, 2026 @01:58PM
(#47038790)
Did not realize I could do that! Thank you!
Re:What Your Bluetooth Devices Reveal About You
by rationalist on Monday February 16, 2026 @03:00PM
(#47039550)
I only see an option to turn back on tomorrow. How do you find this option?
Re:What Your Bluetooth Devices Reveal About You
by craftkiller on Monday February 16, 2026 @06:09PM
(#47041596)
It's under Settings > Security and Privacy > Exploit Protection > Turn off bluetooth automatically
Definitely not the most obvious location. I would have expected to find this under the bluetooth settings.
Re:What Your Bluetooth Devices Reveal About You
by rationalist on Monday February 16, 2026 @10:50PM
(#47043499)
Awesome, thank you.
I don't recall that being there when I first installed GrapheneOS. I need to go through the settings more often I guess.
It might be a cool feature if settings were highlighted or had a red dot or something until it was viewed (like an unread notification).
Re:What Your Bluetooth Devices Reveal About You
by 9991 on Monday February 16, 2026 @09:36PM
(#47043058)
Your problem is that you chose an OS that respects you and treats you with dignity.
Re:What Your Bluetooth Devices Reveal About You
by silon42 on Monday February 16, 2026 @12:40PM
(#47037857)
Android now has an option to enable it every day.. (I have it disabled).
Re:What Your Bluetooth Devices Reveal About You
by officeplant on Monday February 16, 2026 @01:38PM
(#47038506)
With iOS the easiest way to make sure it off and stays off is to build a shortcut to cut off wifi/bluetooth. Otherwise it's typically off until you get geolocated as being back home/work and wifi comes back on.
I have a "store mode" button that just kills wifi/bt that I hit before I go into any store.
Re:What Your Bluetooth Devices Reveal About You
by mcosta on Monday February 16, 2026 @03:49PM
(#47040150)
what do you gain doing this?
Re:What Your Bluetooth Devices Reveal About You
by officeplant on Monday February 16, 2026 @04:15PM
(#47040427)
Peace of mind that I'm not being tracked around the store by wifi/bt, and/or having my device fingerprinted for further identification on future visits.
Re:What Your Bluetooth Devices Reveal About You
by dylan604 on Monday February 16, 2026 @02:22PM
(#47039105)
I miss wired headphones for this purpose. It's the only reason I even have BT enabled.
Re:What Your Bluetooth Devices Reveal About You
by poolnoodle on Tuesday February 17, 2026 @02:44AM
(#47044758)
Wired headphones do still exist. :-)
I often use a pair of cheap USB C Apple earpods with my Google Pixel.
Re:What Your Bluetooth Devices Reveal About You
by joemi on Monday February 16, 2026 @06:12PM
(#47041617)
I used to fervently keep my bluetooth off on iOS, and I learned that if you turn it off via the Control Center, then it automatically gets turned back on the next day. But if you turn it off via Settings, then it only gets turned back on when the system software updates. (I stopped doing this a couple iOS versions ago, though, so it may have changed since then.)
Re:What Your Bluetooth Devices Reveal About You
by jerlam on Monday February 16, 2026 @07:12PM
(#47042053)
Bluetooth (and wifi) aren't turned off at all through the Control Center - they changed the wording to say "disconnected", meaning that your phone only disconnects from known devices. But both are still turned on for other purposes such as CarPlay, Handoff, and Location Services (via wifi). For the purposes of this discussion, they are potentially still transmitting a known identifier.
Apple reconnects to known devices and networks at 5am:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/102412
Bluetooth and Wi-Fi Aren't Fully Disabled When Off in iOS 11 Control Center
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15297387 (2017, 143 comments)