Why are there loads of unnamed bluetooth devices around me?

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!)

Darkassassin07,
@Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca avatar

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.

ours,

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,

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)

MooseBoys,

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…

Leeps,

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

01189998819991197253,
@01189998819991197253@infosec.pub avatar

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?

kzhe,

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

01189998819991197253,
@01189998819991197253@infosec.pub avatar

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

PsychedSy,

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.

OneWomanCreamTeam,

Reality doesn’t really matter all that much to antivaxxers.

PsychedSy,

It’s more about causing friction. It’s a physical proof with a whole lot of evidence.

_MusicJunkie,

On the ole 600euro communities you regularly see people posting these screenshots as “proof” of tracking devices in vaccinations.

01189998819991197253,
@01189998819991197253@infosec.pub avatar

I’m not sure what 600euro communities are, but I read a bit about it after the previous comment, and I’m appalled that this is a thing. Let’s use a bit of logic here: if the government truly wanted to track our every move, nanotech is not how they’ll go about doing it, when we all carry smartphone trackers in our pockets every where we go. A little logic would burn their theory to ashes.

_MusicJunkie,

Community to make fun of conspiracy theorists. Used to be wacky, “I think the birds outside my window are working for the government, anyone know a crystal that can help me” sort of thing, became a little sad with COVID.

01189998819991197253,
@01189998819991197253@infosec.pub avatar

Interesting. But if it’s satire, are you saying the covid conspiracy people took over those communities and made them into “real”/non-satirical communities?

Natanael,

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

dQw4w9WgXcQ,

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,
@Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca avatar

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.

techwooded,

Just in case

drahardja,

Because you have lots of BT devices around you!

I_Miss_Daniel,
I_Miss_Daniel avatar

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

EddoWagt,

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

B0rax,

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.

B0rax,

Usually they use something (but not exactly) zigbee

YodaDaCoda,
@YodaDaCoda@sh.itjust.works avatar

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

PixeIOrange,

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

LazaroFilm,
@LazaroFilm@lemmy.world avatar

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,

collegefurtrader,

Every single node in any form of “smart home” networks including color changing light bulbs

TheButtonJustSpins,

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

railsdev,

I use Philips hue and totally hated when they started adding Bluetooth to their products. Why anyone would need that is beyond.

collegefurtrader,

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

TheButtonJustSpins,

That makes sense.

mvirts,

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

Zink,

Just how much power do you think those suckers are using in standby!?

mvirts,

Depends on how much you paid for them 😹 also I’m more worried about when they stop going into standby because they become the bastion of a botnet trying to get into my other machines

Zink,

So I have to worry about my lamp pwning my clothes dryer?

What a future we live in!

mvirts,

Iot ransomware: it’ll burn your house down 😹

nothacking,

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.

coffeebiscuit,

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

Waker,

Please don’t fuck toothbrushes :(

RedditRefugee69,

What if they vibrate though?

kafa,
@kafa@lemmy.ml avatar

they map in Bluetooth as vibrators then

Norgur,

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

baronvonj,
@baronvonj@lemmy.world avatar

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.

mvirts,

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.

bionicjoey,

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

DemBoSain,
@DemBoSain@midwest.social avatar

Haha, birds. Right,lol.

MiserableConstruct,

If I had to guess you probably live in a big city in the center. This means when you activate “Show bluetooth devices without names” in the developer settings of your android 13 phone, there appear loads of devices. You probably have no clue what they are because none of them are your devices so why would you know what they are?

PixeIOrange,

I guess im not smart enough to get what you want…

arefx,

If you live in a city center you are probably in a highly populated area and your phone is receiving the signals from other people’s Bluetooth devices in proximity to you and your phone. Basically your seeing the devices of all your neighbors, because that’s how wireless Bluetooth transmission works.

kafa,
@kafa@lemmy.ml avatar

or in other words, BT devices broadcast their names only in pairing mode, so you know only the names of devices you are paired with.

all other devices continue to be there, but normally not shown, because you don’t know them.

Until you pair, there’s no reason for showing them

Blackmist,

Stasi listening devices. We never went away, comrade.

PixeIOrange,

God dammit.

SomeBoyo,

Can confirm (posted from a Stasi listening device)

PlexSheep,

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

peter,
@peter@feddit.uk avatar

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

PixeIOrange,

Thx for your suggestions, theyll help.

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