Connecting Bluetooth devices with Chromebooks has been a pain right since day one. Issues with pairing, connecting, and audio playback have hounded users for years. Chromebooks literally keep you waiting for minutes before showing nearby Bluetooth devices, if you’re lucky enough. A few more minutes of waiting would finally let you use a Bluetooth device with your Chromebook, but not for long as the device simply loses connection too often. However, after a long wait, Google finally seems to be introducing a fix to the myriad of issues.
Fix for Bluetooth issues in Chromebook
Earlier this year, Google hinted at Bluetooth fixes for Chromebooks through the bug tracker and other commits. Called Newblue, Google’s effort hit the developer channel late in March. Now almost four months later, Newblue can be enabled in the Stable Channel of Chrome OS 69. And you can do so by enabling the #newblue flag in chrome://flags.
You’ll obviously won’t notice any differences in the UI, but you would once you try pairing up a Bluetooth device. Just put your device in pairing mode and flip on Bluetooth in your Chromebook. The devices would show up almost immediately, and connecting also takes only a few seconds. Furthermore, you won’t notice any dropped connections either. Obviously, it’s not something to be amazed of, but it can now be said that Bluetooth in Chromebook is finally working the way it’s supposed to.
As for the release date, there’s no official info yet, but we’ll probably see it along with all the other big changes on the way in Chrome OS 70. The “Made By Google” event is scheduled to take place in New York on October 9, where Google is expected to launch a second-generation Pixelbook alongside the Pixel 3 smartphones. So I won’t bet against Google announcing Newblue at the event as well. And if that’s the case, we won’t have to wait for long now.
