nRF Master Control panel not working with android marshmallow

RE: nRF Master Control panel not working with android marshmallow

Aleksander Nowakowski — Wed, 07 Sep 2016 18:52:34 GMT

Hi, the app has been renamed to nRF Connect.

RE: nRF Master Control panel not working with android marshmallow

saiteja — Wed, 07 Sep 2016 14:49:23 GMT

where to find nrf master controll android application. unable to find in play store.

RE: nRF Master Control panel not working with android marshmallow

endnode — Tue, 20 Oct 2015 12:52:23 GMT

You are right, I've found it now. Still don't get why I cannot manage this permission from "Location" menu but need to be looking 2 levels deeper in another branch of the tree... but that's probably my learning curve on Android M and other people feel this as intuitive. Thanks for help!

RE: nRF Master Control panel not working with android marshmallow

Aleksander Nowakowski — Tue, 20 Oct 2015 11:15:03 GMT

Did you try switching the permissions off for those apps? I can disable location permission for Contacts in app settings. Actually it's disabled by default. I can even deny Contacts permission to those apps.

RE: nRF Master Control panel not working with android marshmallow

endnode — Tue, 20 Oct 2015 09:30:50 GMT

Yes, I've heard that this should work but have you tried to deny Location e.g. to apps which already come with Android 6.0 from Google (so they should be correctly coded or what the hell)? If you find out how to prevent apps like "Phone" or "Contacts" from accessing the location please let me know.

RE: nRF Master Control panel not working with android marshmallow

Aleksander Nowakowski — Tue, 20 Oct 2015 09:22:30 GMT

Eventually, quite soon, I guess, all apps will be made for the new permission model. Also, we expect there will be a lot of beacons in the cities, which could be easily used for location tracking. If they were not included in the location permission/service an app could do exactly what you are talking about without your knowledge (if Bluetooth is enabled).

RE: nRF Master Control panel not working with android marshmallow

Aleksander Nowakowski — Tue, 20 Oct 2015 09:19:19 GMT

On Marshmallow you can deny the Location permission to all apps that you don't want to know your location (actually only those made for 6.0+).

RE: nRF Master Control panel not working with android marshmallow

endnode — Tue, 20 Oct 2015 09:18:05 GMT

...and it might make a sense if you could restrict particular app from accessing the locations in "Location" menu of the "System" (even it would be inconvenient and many uneducated users would never find it/do it so effectively it would just open the door to unwanted tracking by apps claiming that user permitted it in the settings) but if you go there you can only disable the app as such! Why Google Service and Contacts should now anything about my location??? Why IKEA app should know where I'm? And dozen of others just in my phone (all of them being from top developers with 100,000+ downloads)? Ridiculous.

Cheers Jan

RE: nRF Master Control panel not working with android marshmallow

endnode — Tue, 20 Oct 2015 09:14:07 GMT

Hi Aleksander,

I understand the intention but if this should be "security fix" then something is wrong (I mean worse then it is already) with Android dev team. Just because I need to do scanning for few minutes I now expose my location to all apps which are eagerly waiting for it and I've seen end users who need to use BLE without bonding during whole day (yes, bonding doesn't scale so having all security on application layer - especially considering how pathetic default security of BT Smart is - is not the option but way to go) and by forcing them to enable location they drained the battery in few hours (because they enabled "precise" location with GPS by mistake) or just degraded battery life time significantly (because suddenly dozens of apps start to use location for tracking of whatever).

RE: nRF Master Control panel not working with android marshmallow

Aleksander Nowakowski — Tue, 20 Oct 2015 07:59:26 GMT

Hi,

In my opinion it's not a bug. Beacons can be used to determine user's location, so both the location permission and enabling location service should be required if an app wants to scan for BLE devices. I'd rather said that before it was a 'bug' or a hole in security. An app still may connect and use bonded devices without location permission nor the service which is also correct.

The next version of nRF MCP will show a message in case the permission is not granted or location service is disabled.

RE: nRF Master Control panel not working with android marshmallow

Daniel Abraham — Mon, 19 Oct 2015 08:59:22 GMT

Enabling "Location" does the magic. Thanks Jan

RE: nRF Master Control panel not working with android marshmallow

endnode — Mon, 19 Oct 2015 07:33:42 GMT

Hi Daniel,

It actually works on my Nexus 5 but as you said Android M needs "Location" permission because LE peripherals are considered as tracking devices (which is quite correct). Unfortunately they implement it wrongly and permission itself is not enough (latest MCP from Play store has it I believe) but you need to really enable "Locations" peripheral in the system. I hope this is a bug which will be corrected but in the meantime you need to settle down with it. Then you will see the advertisements in Scan view as usually.

Cheers Jan