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!)

  • FartsWithAnAccent@lemmy.world
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    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.

  • Baron Von J@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • nothacking@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • federalreverse-old@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    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.

      • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        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.

          • TrenchcoatFullOfBats@belfry.rip
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            1 year ago

            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.

            • TdotMatrix@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              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)?

              • TrenchcoatFullOfBats@belfry.rip
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                1 year ago

                When you buy a new iPhone, is the location tracking “Find My” feature enabled by default, or do you need to turn it off if you don’t want your phone to upload other people’s location data to Apple while draining your battery?

                • TdotMatrix@lemmy.ml
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                  1 year ago

                  Yes, it is turned on by default. You can opt-out if you’d like. Here’s a pretty good article that covers it all: https://www.howtogeek.com/725842/what-is-apples-find-my-network/

                  Samsung SmartTags “Find” network is opt-in, which stagnated the growth of their network.

                  Tile’s network is naturally opt-in as it requires us to install the app, and therefore has the lowest coverage from my understanding.

                  I recall seeing the following approximate numbers:

                  • Apple: 1,000,000,000
                  • Samsung: 300,000,000
                  • Tile: 35,000,000

                  Battery and data usage are negligible.

          • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            You’re right that Bluetooth has been around since 89 but the idea of a personal area network that tracks the movements of a user is a relatively fresh idea. In fact third party data resellers that track you didn’t really exist until after 2006. It’s unique to cell phone data being recognized as basically an analog for an individual, which shows all kinds of data. Did a display catch someone’s attention? We’ll know because of a longer than usual time in front of the display. That display now has an impact rating - not to see how durable it is to dropping but how much attention, how long, and how likely it is to attract attention.

            Want to know something even crazier? That duration of stay can be paired to your phone’s metadata and compared to other interests that phone has seen on social media and web pages (via cookies). So now that display can have personality types and interests linked to it. They will know the types of person who will be attracted and it makes the data a gold mine for advertisers.

  • dQw4w9WgXcQ@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Started with smart bulbs, but very quickly moved to actual smart switches+plugs instead.

      Smart bulbs automatically turn on when power goes out and back on. (so you can still control them from the regular switch) This is anoying af with how frequently I get short power outages.

      • fahfahfahfah@lemmy.billiam.net
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        1 year ago

        My wife and I used to have some smart switches in a previous house that were set to turn on when we came home. Woke the kids up a few times forgetting to turn that off before coming back from a night out.

    • YodaDaCoda@sh.itjust.works
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      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.

    • EddoWagt@feddit.nl
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      1 year ago

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

      • B0rax@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        That’s not correct. They run on coin cells and use their own RF protocol. Most use something like zigbee. Others even use light to transfer data.

  • 𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘@infosec.pub
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    1 year ago

    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?

  • misterwu@lemmy.world
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    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

  • ours@lemmy.film
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    1 year ago

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

    • PixeIOrange@feddit.deOP
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      1 year ago

      They are way less undercover around here. Theres a helicopter that spies on everyone 2-3 times a month. No infos on flightradar, no infos directly sent from it. We are all dead soon!

      (/s)

  • LazaroFilm@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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,

  • Big P@feddit.uk
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    1 year ago

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

  • MooseBoys@lemmy.world
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    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…