Bluetooth Settings

[vassallon]

I can't wait for Meraki to get this rolled out so I can finally be sure student iPads have Bluetooth always enabled for Apple Classroom to work and allow students to pair Bluetooth devices.

Bluetooth Modifies the Bluetooth Setting

To send a Bluetooth command, the server sends a dictionary containing the following keys:

KeyTypeContent

Item	String	Bluetooth. Availability: Available in iOS 11.3 and later for supervised devices and in macOS 10.13.4 and later.
Enabled	Boolean	If true, enables Bluetooth. If false, disables Bluetooth. Availability: Available in iOS 11.3 and later for supervised devices and in macOS 10.13.4 and later.

[sshort]

It's really odd that this isn't available in the Profile Manager section of macOS Server or the Configurator apps at the moment. I've updated to macOS 10.13.4, typically any new MDM payloads for iOS/macOS/tvOS appear as configurable options in those apps.

But nothing right now, just the existing ability to disable modifying the bluetooth setting on a device.

[vassallon]

I was noticing the same thing, I have updated to the latest OSX and Apple Configurator 2 versions and I can't find this setting anywhere in AC2 to build my own profile. I have an open ticket with Apple on this, as the new turn off Bluetooth for 24 hours setting is overriding the restriction we have in place for not allowing Bluetooth Modifications. Interestingly enough the only place I have seen the Bluetooth setting mentioned is in the MDM guide the App support Engineer sent me.

https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/Miscellaneous/Reference/MobileDeviceManage...

[vassallon · Accepted solution]

Well these are some new buttons in Meraki. I don't see how exactly this fixes things to where we ensure Bluetooth is on and still allow students to pair devices. I would prefer a restriction that locks Bluetooth on and allows students to have control so they can pair devices.

Bluetooth Buttons

[jared_f]

@vassallon I believe apple as made this a remote command, so I believe there is no way of enforcing this via configuration profile. Maybe Meraki could setup a remote command to send bluetooth on during check-in.

[vassallon]

I specifically asked Apple to have this as a restriction so that we could force Bluetooth on and allow pairing without giving the students the ability to turn it off at all. I'm rather annoyed they just gave us a button instead of the restriction like I asked them to provide.

[alexis_cazalaa]

Meraki should at least add it to the Command Menu in the client list.

[vassallon]

Even if Meraki did add it, with the change to iOS 11.3 of allowing to turn off Bluetooth for 24 hours, students can turn Bluetooth right back off. This setting does not follow the restriction of allow Bluetooth settings which is quite frustrating which is why I was hoping with 11.3 Apple did it right and gave us a restriction to enforce Bluetooth always on.

[jared_f]

I know there is a restriction to lock Bluetooth currently, but if it is off then it gets locked off. Maybe the ability could be added to send the lock restriction right after the Bluetooth ON command. Thanks Apple...

[misterharrison]

@vassallon

I think this is fixed now, maybe in 11.3.1?

I have students' bluetooth option greyed out so that they can't turn it off for 24 hrs:

[alexis_cazalaa]

@vassallon did you find a way to enforce bluetooth On but allow pairing ?

[vassallon]

@alexis_cazalaa Not yet, still waiting for Apple to give us that ability. I haven't looked to see if it was included in iOS 12.

[alexis_cazalaa]

@vassallon doesn't look like it 😞

[vassallon]

@alexis_cazalaa Yeah I took a look through MDM settings for IT and still don't see the requested force Bluetooth on and allow pairing.

https://help.apple.com/deployment/mdm

[alexis_cazalaa]

It’s a shame because this restriction is useless as is.

[jared_f]

I know the bluetooth restriction locks the toggle off if it is set to off when the configuration profile is pushed. But it doesn't allow other devices to be paired? Very stupid on Apple's part. Would it be possible to use the Meraki API to send the bluetooth on command to all devices every "x" minutes? I would set it to two minutes and eventually people would just get tired of turning it off. 

[alexis_cazalaa]

Wish this was possible