this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2023
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I live in a big city in the center. When i activate "Show bluetooth devices without names" in the developer settings of my android 13 phone, there appear loads of this devices. I have no clue what they are. Does anyone know? Are that the bluetooth nanobots of the vaxxinated people? (/s to last question!)

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[–] [email protected] 126 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Probably just because you live in a big city and there are a shitload of bluetooth devices around. If you're worried, try moving out of bluetooth range and scanning again to see if any of them don't change.

[–] [email protected] 120 points 1 year ago (1 children)

All those spiders that you're never more than 10 feet from have started using fitness wearables, and with 8 arms each that's a lot of bluetooth nearby.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Don't forget the birds. They want us to think they're eating the spiders. It's actually more like Uber for spiders, they use Bluetooth for ride hailing.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Birds don't use Bluetooth. They use 5g in order to connect to the government surveillance drone network

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Haha, birds. Right,lol.

[–] [email protected] 106 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Bluetooth devices only broadcast their name when in pairing mode, at other times only the mac address is available. In other words, these are just people's Bluetooth devices like headphones, cellphones, airtags, etc.

[–] [email protected] 79 points 1 year ago (1 children)

… tv’s, soundbars, remotes, keyboards, mouses, media players,… fucking toothbrushes, vibrators, mirrors, etcs.

[–] [email protected] 55 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Please don't fuck toothbrushes :(

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What if they vibrate though?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

they map in Bluetooth as vibrators then

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

You'd think... Mine didn't... Had to write a whole wrapper with kernel module and all...

[–] [email protected] 100 points 1 year ago (2 children)

They may just be other people's various devices. Maybe IoT devices or devices not fully set up. If you're living near a store/above a store, those might be Bluetooth beacons that track people through the store.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago (1 children)

TIL about Bluetooth beacons. I assumed people were tracked, but I didn’t consider it was via Bluetooth.

[–] [email protected] 60 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Bluetooth personal networks have been a thing for about a decade and are used for monitoring traffic density and flow by third party companies. It's partly why Apple was removing their aux ports and pushing for Bluetooth so much, they are making money with tracking their statistically significant user base. Google does it too and it's most readily evident with Maps traffic filter.

If you've wondered why enabling Bluetooth asked for iPhone location to be enabled, now you know.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Just wait until you hear about how AirTags work:

Apple AirTags emit a Bluetooth signal that anonymously connects to any nearby device active within Apple’s Find My network (any iPhone after iPhone 11 with "Find My" enabled). The AirTag’s location is triangulated based on the strength of the Bluetooth signal sent to those third-party devices.

Your AirTag’s location information is uploaded to the cloud and pinned on a map for easy reference.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

That's how it's expected to work, yes. As does Samsung SmartTags, and Tiles. These tracking devices (that we purchase and opt-in for) are a net positive in most cases. How else would we expect them to work if not for Bluetooth beacons (and UWB)?

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[–] [email protected] 70 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Because you have lots of BT devices around you!

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Stasi listening devices. We never went away, comrade.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

Nowadays, people buy them out of free will. They give them names and ask them to play Despacito.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

Can confirm (posted from a Stasi listening device)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

God dammit.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I have replaced almost every light bulb in my house with smart bulbs which feature both bluetooth and zigbee connections. It's around 40 devices. If your neighbour has smart bulbs or other devices, I guess that could be a large part of it.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Our Aldi now has electronic price tags for each product in the centre aisles. I wonder if they're Bluetooth.

[–] YodaDaCoda 9 points 1 year ago

It varies. Some of them use Bluetooth Low Energy, some of them use other wireless techniques for lower power and greater range.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

I have an idea, there are some restaurants around, maybe its these restaurant pagers.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They're usually e-ink displays that get their power from NFC, so they're probably not Bluetooth

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Could be anything, since you're in the middle of a large city center. Could be smart devices, could be FindMys or similar, could be beacons, could be trackers, could be any combination.

[E]. To answer your nanobot question. I guess it could be nanobots, though all of the ones I've ever seen, use NFC. Also, "of the vaxxinated people"? I haven't heard that one before. What is that about?

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's a reference to conspiracy theories about vaccines containing trackers

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh... didn't realize that was a thing. That's.... a bit disturbing....

[–] PsychedSy 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I don't think they realize how small the vaccine needles are or how hard it would be to actually track you with a microscopic device.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

A ton of devices not currently in discoverable mode too. Smart watches, TVs, etc.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago

I think those are electric scooters if your city has those. When im around a lot of those things my device list looks just like this

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's perfectly normal, pay no mind to them or the plumber van parked day and night on the other side of the road.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So many electronics now have a Bluetooth chip, wether they use it or not. If you have AirPods, that’s up to 3 BY devices (each ear plus case), each phone, each computer (+ mouse, keyboard), TV (+ remote controls), game pads, Bluetooth speakers (plus extra of stereo or 5.1). A lot of small devices too now have Bluetooth like some Arduino boards can Raspberry Pi,

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Every single node in any form of β€œsmart home” networks including color changing light bulbs

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Most of those use other networks - Zwave, Zigbee, or WiFi.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Many of them use Bluetooth or BLE for setup purposes and im sure some don’t bother to stop advertising

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (4 children)

My god the wifi lightbulbs make me want to cry, at least mine crypto or something with that heat source

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Try using RamBLE or nRF Connect to see some more info about the devices

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

You can use the 1st half of the mac to lookup the vendor (OUI)

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

I see 21 devices in just my house. Many Sonos speakers (no name when not advertising BT input). Several air monitors. All my TVs. A temperature tracker. Three smart switches…

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Smart devices like switches, bulbs, outlets, etc; air tags and other brands of Bluetooth tracker; wireless speaker systems, headphones.

Many of these devices won't broadcast a name at all, or will only broadcast a name while pairing.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Just in case

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

There's an app called AirGuard put out by a German university, it scans for air tags in your vicinity. Useful if you are worried about someone slipping an AirTag on your person/belongings to track you.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

When i activate "Show bluetooth devices without names"

I think that option just shows MAC addresses (or whatever it is BT uses) instead of the devices' names?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It shows all Bluetooth devices in range, whereas normally Android only shows ones which your phone knows the name of, either because they're in pairing mode and thus broadcasting their name, or because you've paired before.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Ah, interesting

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