I have the opposite. I have never a reason to turn off Bluetooth, but always want to connect of disconnect devices. this is so much better than long pressing.
Yeah they built this UI on the assumption that people didn't turn off their BT generally. This is an improvement for me but I really don't see why they can't make it an option for people.
My wife's car is extremely aggressive. The second she turns it on, it steals my Bluetooth connection. I could be mowing my lawn, listening to music on my phone, then suddenly hear nothing, and it's because my wife got in her car and was suddenly blasted with my tunes.
I tell my phone to forget her car's Bluetooth connection, but then I'm constantly harassed by pop-ups on my phone every minute saying her car wants to pair with my phone. I can't get it to stop pinging me. It sees a Bluetooth device in range and then spams it, trying to connect.
So yes, I like to keep my Bluetooth off until I want to use it.
I turn it off daily. I have 2 phones and I don't want to connect my personal phone to my BT speaker at work. I can see where you're coming from though.
I don't want to connect my personal phone to my BT speaker at work
I'm confused, do you shuttle the same speaker between work and home or is work a separate speaker? If it's a separate speaker why don't you just delete it's pairing from your personal phone?
I think this is the reason why Google implemented it. They already track you over Wi-Fi when you do not explicitly turn off the option, so Bluetooth is going the same route
I was like you once until I got a speaker for the bathroom and now the wife and I fight over it...
If we both have BT on, the speaker will connect to the last phone which is almost always the wrong one... And then the yelling fest starts so the other turns it off
Yeah. That's my use case as well. I rather liked this. Even if I want to turn off BT, this is just one small button more that's almost underneath the fingertip on my phone when you press the bt.
I don't want to go conspiracy theory, but in my opinion it feels like a dark pattern to increase the time people have Bluetooth on. I believe they did the same thing with success for Wi-Fi. If I recall correctly, even when you are not connected to a device, Google can estimate your location based on what Wi-Fi networks you are in proximity to and something to varying degrees might work for Bluetooth as well which is why they also roll the feature over to the Bluetooth toggle
They already do that regardless of the state of those toggles. You have to turn that off in a different spot.
The main Bluetooth and Wi-Fi toggles otherwise just stop your device from actively associating/pairing with other devices. They do not control the radios.
Wut. Why would they bother when your cellular connection is constantly pinging all towers to literally triangulate your location? Why do something much more complicated to get data they already have?
The real answer is they are a multi billion dollar company with telemetry. Obviously, the vast majority of people never turn off WiFi or Bluetooth. Most people want quick access to connect to a WiFi network or Bluetooth device, not to toggle either off.
Bluetooth give a lot more information about your surrounding (what device your phone detect or connect, for how much time, distance from objects, etc.), not only from your phone alone, but from other people phones who have bluetooth on and e.g. never disable any tracking from google services too. And the Mac address for bluetooth never change, so any device (and tracking company) will know you is forever you. Bluetooth is a privacy nightmare, and this is totally a dark pattern. People not knowing what they're doing is of course a thing, but it seems just a usual bad practice by google, who like to manipulate especially not tech-savvy people
Can we talk about how space inefficient the UI is? It takes up the entire screen to essentially show 6 buttons. And I bet like the Internet toggle that it moves the buttons around when it detects new networks
It's actually 9 buttons + DONE button. Each device has the option to connect to it by clicking its name, or enter Settings by tapping on its gear icon.
I prefer this. I've been annoyed by having to go to the settings every time I wanted to swap device I want to connect to. I rarely turn off BT anyways.
Before it was a single tap to turn Bluetooth on/off, and a tap+hold to open the Bluetooth settings (or any quick setting tile in your notification tray). Maybe you just didn't know about that feature but the old way was 100% better.
Going through the comments, I think it's clear to conclude this should be a choice to configure this tile. Some people prefer single tap to turn off, some don't
I honestly thought this was my own doing and was about to go insane when I couldn't find the setting to revert this. Why on earth would they do this.......
I've felt this a lot over the years. Regressions in interface designs happen here and there, and I feel it's just people justifying their jobs. We have to change this, and that, and EVERYTHING, to keep it fresh. Where in reality, sometimes only some things need changing.
I put buttons on screens for people at work and I'm imagining the fury that would rain down on me if I put 2 buttons in place do a normal thing that was once one button. I would never hear the end of it.
What version are you on? 15? I'm on 14, and for me it's as it ever was. Also, can you replace it by editing the Shortcuts? I was able to replace the Internet thingy with separate toggles for Mobile Data/WiFi by doing that.
I'm on 14 but on a Pixel 8 and it's like OP shows now. Clicking the button on the quick menu just opens the screen OP is showing instead of turning off the BT radio like it did on my previous phone, which was also on Android 14.
For some reason, certain features and UI changes don't happen for every device even if they're on the same version of the OS. Like every phone maker has their own tweaked version of it for their specific phone, and it's not a universal experience for everyone just being on Android.
Fuck Google's recent changes to the quick settings panel, really. Especially now that One UI 6 didn't revert those changes like it was done with One UI 5.
Does it not turn on Bluetooth before opening that menu?
It does for me.
Bluetooth on: single tap turns it off.
Bluetooth off: single tap turns it on and opens that menu so you can select a device to connect to. (it still connects to the last connected device automatically) From there tapping back or tapping beside it closes it.
Been that way for several years now. (Samsung A54, and A52 prior to this one)
Not on my Pixel 8. Single tap on the Bluetooth button only opens the Bluetooth connection screen with a separate toggle to actually turn on Bluetooth once you're in there. Google likes to do things the hard way.
I don't like it, but I like it more than the old way of holding the button down to get to the menu. I do hate that the "see all" menu doesn't just expand the current menu, it takes you to the old menu. There's definitely hints of windows95 creeping into Android.
I think however this is just based on how the average user interacts with this toggle. Very few users actively turn off their BT, ever, as they have frequent situations where they want their BT to just work immediately.
OTOH, this means that in some cases, they need to swap which device to connect to, hence opening the menu on the first tap.
It's so Google can keep tracking you via Bluetooth and WiFi, which they hope you forgot to turn off said tracking option in settings, and they are making it difficult to turn off all the way.
I will never understand wireless headphones as a concept. They seem objectively worse in every way.
Lower sound quality, more battery intensive, have to be charged, less comfortable, easier to drop and way easier to lose. Also, makes you look like you're talking to yourself all the time
This was pointed out already that I could just unpair my personal phone to my speaker, but I have 2 phones. I have a speaker at work both are paired to. So every day I turn bluetooth off so when I turn my speaker on I'm not announcing connection to my personal phone because it violates cell phone policy. Because it announces connection to both, I turn bluetooth off before I go inside. Since I have a work phone, I'm good to use that one, just not my personal phone.