Google today posted a notice on the Android Developers Blog telling app makers that the Nearby Connections API will stop automatically switching on device radios, a default behavior change scheduled for late 2026 that moves responsibility for enabling Wi-Fi and Bluetooth onto the applications themselves and, ultimately, onto the people using them.
The post, published on July 20, 2026, under the byline of Wei Wang, an engineering manager on the Android team, frames the update as an alignment with privacy and transparency principles. According toย Google, the shift is narrow in scope but specific in effect. The API previously held the ability to toggle Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radios into the ON state on its own, without any explicit action from the person holding the phone. That capability is being withdrawn.
What is changing
The mechanism at issue is a piece of plumbing most Android users never see. Nearby Connections is a peer-to-peer networking API that lets applications discover, connect to, and exchange data with other devices in physical proximity, and it does so without needing an internet connection at any point. Under the hood it draws on a combination of Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy, and Wi-Fi, selecting among them to balance range, bandwidth, and power draw. To make that work, the radios have to be on.
Until now, the API could handle that prerequisite quietly. If Wi-Fi or Bluetooth sat in the OFF position when an app tried to begin advertising its presence or discovering other…